NRLF 


B   14   71fl  75fl 


Concorti 

THE  COMPLETE  WORKS   OF 
RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

WITH  A  BIOGRAPHICAL  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES  BY 

EDWARD    WALDO    EMERSON    AND    A    GENERAL    INDEX 

ILLUSTRATED  WITH  PHOTOGRAVURES 

VOLUME    I 


PREFACE 


IT  has  seemed  fitting  in  the  one  hundredth  " 
year  since  the  birth  of  Emerson  to  prepare 
a  new  edition  of  his  writings  in  prose  and  verse. 
Nearly  twenty  years  have  gone  by  since  the  last 
edition  was  published.  Mr.  Emerson  in  his 
later  years,  when  he  found  himself  unequal  to 
the  task  of  revising  the  manuscript  of  his  lectures 
and  arranging  the  matter  in  permanent  form, 
with  hesitation  approached  on  the  subject  the 
one  man  in  whose  taste  and  judgment  he  most 
confided,  Mr.  James  Elliot  Cabot.  His  friend 
consented,  and  came  constantly  to  Concord  to 
work  on  the  papers,  with  most  gratifying  results. 
By  him  Letters  and  Social  Aims  was  prepared  for 
the  press.  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  will  appointed 
him  his  literary  executor. 

Two  years  after  Mr.  Emerson's  death,  eleven 
volumes,  carefully  edited  by  Mr.  Cabot,  were 
published  in  the  "Riverside  Edition";  and  a 
twelfth  was  added  in  1895.  The  preparation  of 
the  three  posthumous  volumes  required  much 
care  and  labor,  and  this  work  was  excellently 
done. 


978535 


vi  PREFACE 

Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company 
last  summer  urged  the  fitness  of  preparing  a 
Centenary  Edition  with  full  annotation,  and 
the  matter  was  submitted  by  me  to  Mr.  Cabot. 
He  concurred  in  their  view,  but  felt  unable 
to  undertake  the  task  and  advised  me  to  do  so. 
With  the  sanction  of  his  wish,  and  because  of 
more  ready  access  to  the  manuscript  and  other 
sources  of  information  than  another  could  have, 
I  assumed  the  duty,  hoping  for  the  benefit  of 
the  advice  of  my  father's  friend.  This  hope  was 
cut  off  by  Mr.  Cabot's  death  in  January.  But 
his  admirable  arrangement  of  the  manuscript, 
years  ago,  in  which  task  the  help  of  his  wife,  now 
also  gone,  is  gratefully  remembered,  had  made 
the  work  lighter. 

The  first  eight  volumes  contain  the  collected 
Essays  as  Mr.  Emerson  left  them,  except  revi 
sion  in  punctuation  and  correction  of  obvious 
mistakes.  The  ninth  volume  comprises  the  pieces 
chosen  by  him  from  the  "  Poems  "  and  "  May- 
Day  J>  to  form  the  "  Selected  Poems,"  with  some 
restored  that  he  omitted,  and  the  addition  of 
some  poems  and  fragments  never  published  in 
his  lifetime,  most  of  which  appeared  in  the 
Riverside  Edition.  All  verbal  emendations  in 


PREFACE  vii 

the  poems  have  the  sanction  of  his  pencillings 
on  the  margin  of  his  printed  poems.  The  tenth, 
eleventh,  and  twelfth  volumes  consist  of  lectures 
unprinted  during  Mr.  Emerson's  lifetime  and 
of  "  Occasional  Addresses  "  and  other  prose 
writings  which  have  appeared  separately  or  in 
periodicals. 

In  the  edition  which  was  published  soon  after 
Mr.  Emerson's  death  it  did  not  seem  best  either 
to  his  family  or  to  Mr.  Cabot  to  present  to  the 
public  any  passages  from  Mr.  Emerson's  jour 
nals  or  the  earlier  writings.  The  continued  in 
terest  in  his  life  and  work,  and  the  lapse  of 
years  and  the  death  of  his  contemporaries,  have 
made  it  seem  perhaps  well  now  to  print  some 
selections.  Mr.  Cabot  sanctioned  the  consider 
ation  of  this  project.  As  the  journals  cover 
nearly  half  a  century  (although  the  greater  part 
of  their  contents  appears  in  the  printed  books), 
the  editing  would  require  time  and  care.  It  is 
hoped  that  a  few  volumes  may  be  prepared  from 
these. 

I  undertook  the  annotation  of  the  works  at 
the  desire  of  the  publishers,  sharing  their  feeling 
that  to  the  student  of  Emerson  side-lights  on 
the  man,  his  surroundings,  his  work,  and  method 


viii  PREFACE 

might  be  welcome,  gathered  from  the  journals, 
the  correspondence,  reminiscences,  and  works 
written  about  him.  In  supplying  the  notes  I 
have  had  to  rely  on  my  own  judgment.  The 
pressure  due  to  the  late  undertaking  of  the  work 
has  prevented  my  revising  and  condensing  them. 
Remembering  that  notes  seem  to  many  readers 
an  interruption  and  even  an  impertinence,  they 
have  been  placed  at  the  end  of  each  volume. 
Repetitions  occur,  because  a  reader  who  wishes 
information  cannot  search  all  the  volumes.  The 
occurrence  of  the  same  thought  or  expression  in 
the  prose  and  poems  has  been  pointed  out. 

I  thankfully  acknowledge  the  help  of  friends 
in  finding  the  more  unusual  quotations.  I  also 
gratefully  recognize  the  help  received  from  the 
works  of  various  writers  about  my  father. 

EDWARD  WALDO   EMERSON. 
CONCORD,  April  8th,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xi 

NATURE  i 

THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  79 

An  Oration  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society,  at  Cambridge,  August  31,  1837 

AN  ADDRESS  117 

Delivered  before  the  Senior  Class  in  Divinity  Col 
lege,  Cambridge,  July  15,  1838. 

LITERARY  ETHICS  153 

An  Oration  delivered  before  the  Literary  Societies 
of  Dartmouth  College,  July  24,  1838. 

THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE  189 

An  Oration  delivered  before  the  Society  of  the  Adel- 
phi,  in  Waterville  College,  Maine,  August  1 1 , 
1841. 

MAN  THE  REFORMER  225 

A  Lecture  read  before  the  Mechanics'  Apprentices' 
Library  Association,  Boston,  January  25,  1841. 

LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES  257 

Read  at  the  Masonic  Temple,  Boston,  December 
2,  1841. 

THE  CONSERVATIVE  293 

A  Lecture  read  at  the  Masonic  Temple,  Boston, 
December  9,  1841. 


x  CONTENTS 

THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST  327 

A  Lecture  read  at  the  Masonic  Temple,  Boston, 
January,  1842. 

THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  361 

A  Lecture  read  before  the  Mercantile  Library  Asso 
ciation,  Boston,  February  7,  i  844. 

NOTES  397 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


PACK 


RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  Frontispiece 

From  a  daguerreotype  in  1847,  now  in  the  pos 
session  of  the  Carlyle  family,  England 

THE  OLD  MANSE  74 

From  a  photograph 

A.   BRONSON  ALCOTT  250 

From  a  photograph  in  1875 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

IF  there  be  power  in  good  intention,  in  fidelity 
and  in  toil,  the  North  wind  shall  be  purer,  the 
stars  in  heaven  shall  glow  with  a  kindlier  beam, 
that  I  have  lived.  I  am  primarily  engaged  to  my 
self  to  be  a  public  servant  of  all  the  gods,  to  de 
monstrate  to  all  men  that  there  is  intelligence  and 
good  will  at  the  heart  of  things,  and  ever  higher 
and  yet  higher  leadings.  These  are  my  engage 
ments  ;  how  can  your  law  further  or  hinder  me  in 
what  I  shall  do  to  men  ?  .  .  .  Wherever  there  are 
men,  are  the  objects  of  my  study  and  love.  Sooner 
or  later  all  men  will  be  my  friends  and  will  testify 
in  all  methods  the  energy  of  their  regards. 

Such  is  the  hero's  attitude  in  facing  life,  Em 
erson  said,  in  one  of  his  early  lectures.  After 
his  death,  forty  years  later,  his  friend  Dr. 
Holmes  in  writing  of  him  said,  "  Consciously  or 
unconsciously  men  describe  themselves  in  the 
characters  they  draw.  One  must  have  the  mor 
dant  in  his  own  personality  or  he  will  not  take 
the  color  of  his  subject,"  and  the  Doctor  goes 
on  to  show  how  well  the  test  applies  to  his  prose, 
and  especially  to  his  verse.  And  as  for  the 
North  wind  and  the  stars,  Emerson  held  their 


xii  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

bracing  and  uplifting  influence  dependent  on 
the  preparation  of  the  soul :  — 

Light-loving,  asking,  life  in  me 
Feeds  those  eternal  lamps  I  see. 

His  spiritual  autobiography  might  be  given 
almost  in  its  completeness  in  impersonal  extracts, 
duly  ordered,  from  his  prose  and  verse.  There, 
as  he  said  of  Shakspeare,  "  in  place  of  meagre 
fact  we  have  really  the  information  which  is 
material :  that  which  describes  character  and  for 
tune,  that  which,  if  we  were  about  to  meet  the 
man  and  deal  with  him,  would  most  import  us 
to  know.  We  have  his  recorded  convictions  on 
those  questions  which  knock  for  answer  at  every 
heart  —  on  life  and  death,  on  love,  on  wealth  and 
poverty,  on  the  prizes  of  life  and  the  ways 
whereby  we  come  at  them  ;  on  the  characters  of 
men  and  the  influences,  occult  and  open,  which 
affect  their  fortunes ;  and  on  those  mysterious 
and  demoniacal  powers  which  defy  our  science 
and  which  yet  interweave  their  malice  and  their 
gift  in  our  brightest  hours."  In  his  journal  for 
1841  Mr.  Emerson  wrote,  "  Seemed  to  me  that 
I  had  the  keeping  of  a  secret  too  great  to  be 
confided  to  one  man  :  that  a  divine  man  dwelt 
near  me  in  a  hollow  tree."  And  again,  "  All 
that  is  said  of  the  wise  man  by  Stoic  or  Oriental 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xiii 

or  Modern  essayist,  describes  to  each  reader  his 
own  idea,  describes  his  unattained  but  attainable 
self;  ...  he  hears  the  commendation,  not  of  him 
self,  but,  more  sweet,  of  that  character  he  seeks, 
in  every  word  that  is  said  concerning  character, 
yea  further,  in  every  fact  and  circumstance  —  in 
the  running  river  and  the  rustling  corn."  This 
purified  man,  —  he  named  him  Osman, —  an 
organ  of  the  Universal  Spirit,  yet  with  his  own 
temperament  and  subject  to  his  experiences, 
often  appears  in  the  Journals  :  — 

1841.  "When  I  wish,  it  is  permitted  me  to 
say,  These  hands,  this  body,  this  history  of 
Waldo  Emerson  are  profane  and  wearisome,  but 
I,  I  descend  not  to  mix  myself  with  that  or  with 
any  man.  Above  his  life,  above  all  creatures,  I 
flow  down  forever  a  sea  of  benefit  into  races  of 
individuals.  Nor  can  the  stream  ever  roll  backs 
ward  or  the  sin  or  death  of  a  man  taint  the  im 
mutable  energy  which  distributes  itself  into  men, 
as  the  sun  into  rays,  or  the  sea  into  drops." 

In  the  notes  to  this  edition  of  Emerson's 
WorkS)  the  correspondence  between  the  passages 
and  his  own  traits  and  experiences  will  be  often 
shown.  But  a  sketch  of  his  personal  history 
must  here  be  briefly  given. 

He  was  born  in  Boston,  May  25,  1803,  tne 


xiv  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

son  of  William  Emerson,  pastor  of  the  Second 
Church,  and  Ruth  Raskins,  his  wife.  His  fa 
ther,  son  of  the  patriotic  young  minister  of  Con 
cord  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  was  a 
preacher,  liberal  for  his  day,  social  and  a  man  of 
letters ;  his  mother,  a  lady  of  serene  sweetness 
and  courage. 

She  was  left  a  widow  in  1 8 1 1  with  her  family 
of  five  little  boys,  and  helped  by  kind  friends, 
brought  them  up  in  straitened  circumstances, 
wisely  and  well.  The  Emerson  ancestry,  almost 
all  ministers,  after  Thomas,  who  came  to  Ipswich 
in  1638,  were  men  who,  living  frugally  and 
prayerfully  in  the  clearings  of  wild  New  Eng 
land,  had  striven  to  keep  before  the  minds  of 
their  people 

"  The  invisible  things  of  God,  before  things  seen  and  known." 

They  were  humble  and  earnest  scholars.  Mr. 
Emerson  told  that,  in  his  childhood,  "  Dr. 
Frothingham  one  day  found  me  in  his  parlor, 
and  coming  close  and  looking  at  the  form  of 
my  head,  said,  c  If  you  are  good,  it  is  no  thanks 
to  you/  '  These  Emerson  boys,  "  born  to  be 
educated,"  as  their  Aunt  Mary  Emerson,1  the 

1  An  account  of  her  is  given  by  her  nephew  in  Lectures 
and  Biographical  Sketches. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xv 

strange  sibyl  and  inspirer  of  their  youth,  said 
of  them,  helped  the  matter  on  by  their  eager 
reading,  especially  of  poetry,  their  ventures  in 
writing,  and  declamation  to  one  another  of  fine 
passages  in  which  they  delighted.  There  were 
almost  no  children's  books  then,  and  they  soon 
were  versed  in  the  best  authors.  Mr.  Emerson, 
in  the  essay  "  Domestic  Life  "  in  the  volume 
Society  and  Solitude,  gives  a  touching  and  true 
picture  of  the  life  of  these  brothers  in  their 
childhood,  and  speaking  of  their  air  castles  says, 
"  Woe  to  them  if  their  wishes  were  crowned. 
The  angels  that  dwell  with  them  and  are  weav 
ing  laurels  of  life  for  their  youthful  brows  are 
Toil  and  Want,  Truth  and  Mutual  Faith." 

Rev.  Ezra  Ripley,  the  successor  of  their 
grandfather  in  the  church  of  Concord,  and  mar 
ried  to  his  widow,  welcomed  the  boys  to  the 
Old  Manse  in  the  holidays.  So,  long  before  he 
settled  there,  Mr.  Emerson  had  loving  memories 
of  Concord  woods  and  meadows. 

Emerson  entered  Harvard  College  at  the 
age  of  fourteen ;  he  graduated  with  his  class  in 
1821.  Like  a  great  part  of  the  students  of  his 
day,  he  helped  himself  through  his  course  by 
various  services,  either  to  the  college  or  by  teach 
ing.  Though  his  instincts  drove  him  much  to 


xvi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

solitude,  he  found  enjoyment  too  in  the  social 
life  of  the  small  classes  of  his  day,  and  was  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Pythologian,  a  convivio-literary  club 
for  which  he  furnished  the  songs.  Alluding  to 
himself  in  his  Journal,  he  writes  of  "  the  youth 
who  has  no  faculty  for  mathematics  and  weeps 
over  the  impossible  analytical  geometry,  to  con 
sole  his  defeats  with  Chaucer  and  Montaigne, 
with  Plutarch  and  Plato  at  night."  These  were  to 
him  the  living  professors,  and  became  his  friends 
for  life.  He  loved  Latin  and  Greek  —  not  for 
their  syntax — and  every  paragraph  of  his  English 
shows  the  value  of  these  now  neglected  studies  : 
the  Elizabethan  authors  too,  and  the  ancient 
philosophers,  though  the  modern  metaphysi 
cians  did  not  interest  him.  He  was  only  in  the 
upper  half  of  his  class,  yet  he  won  prizes  for 
declamation  and  dissertations.1  "  Even  in  col 
lege  I  was  already  content  to  be  c screwed'  in 
the  recitation  room  if  on  my  return  I  could 
accurately  paint  the  fact  in  my  journal." 

From  boyhood  to  old  age  he  kept  a  journal, 
not  of  events,  but  wherein  to  note  the  thoughts 
that  were  given  him,  his  trials  at  versifying,  a 

1  Two  of  his  prize  dissertations  are  printed  in  Dr.  Edward 
Everett  Hale's  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  Boston:  Brown  & 
Co.,  1899. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xvii 

quotation  that  charmed,  or  an  anecdote  that 
pleased  him.  In  an  early  lecture,  and  often 
through  life,  he  gave  to  scholars  these  two 
maxims,  i.  "Sit  alone:  in  your  arrangements 
for  residence  see  you  have  a  chamber  to  yourself, 
though  you  sell  your  coat  and  wear  a  blanket. 
2.  Keep  a  journal :  pay  so  much  honor  to  the 
visits  of  Truth  to  your  mind  as  to  record  them." 

In  the  Journal  for  1 837  he  wrote :  "  This  book 
is  my  savings-bank.  I  grow  richer  because  I 
have  somewhere  to  deposit  my  earnings,  and 
fractions  are  worth  more  to  me  because  corre 
sponding  fractions  are  waiting  here  that  shall 
be  made  integers  by  their  addition." 

Neglecting  the  college  text-books  and  in 
curring  admonition  for  so  doing,  he  joyfully 
pastured  in  the  library,  not  reading  serially  or 
thoroughly,  but  with  the  sure  instinct  for  what 
was  for  him  in  a  book,  —  "  reading  for  lustres," 
as  he  called  it.  Looking  backward,  he  said,  "  I 
will  trust  my  instincts  ...  I  was  the  true  phi 
losopher  in  college,  and  Mr.  Farrar  and  Mr. 
Hedge  and  Dr.  Ware  the  false.  Yet  what 
seemed  then  to  me  less  probable  ? " 

Four  of  the  Emerson  boys  went  through 
college,  and  each  had  by  teaching  to  help  the 
others ;  the  younger  ones,  when  their  turn  to 


xviii  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

work  came,  in  some  measure  freeing  the  elder 
brothers  to  pursue  their  education  for  the  min 
istry.  Ralph,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  assisted 
William,  the  eldest  and  the  prop  of  the  family, 
in  his  "  finishing  school  "  for  the  first  young 
ladies  of  Boston.  Later,  he  taught  the  school 
alone,  a  sore  trial  for  a  bashful  boy.  The  relief 
when  he  got  away  from  these  daunting  fair  ones 
to  his  rural  home  found  expression  in  "  Good 
bye,  Proud  World."  He  taught  later  in  Brook- 
line,  Cambridge  and  Chelmsford,  and  began  his 
studies  at  the  Divinity  School. 

The  health  of  the  young  teacher  suffered 
from  too  ascetic  a  life,  and  unmistakable  danger- 
signals  began  to  appear,  fortunately  heeded  in 
time.  Disappointment  and  delay  resulted,  borne, 
however,  with  sense  and  courage.  A  certain 
serene  acceptance  of  physical  and  temperamen 
tal  limitations  came  even  at  that  early  age  into 
play  and  saved  his  life,  balancing  the  drivings 
of  conscience  or  ambition  which  cost  his  two 
brilliant  younger  brothers  their  lives,  and  made 
William,  the  brave  and  faithful  bearer  of  the 
family  burdens,  a  sufferer  through  most  of  his 
life.  ' 

William  studied  for  the  ministry  at  Gottingen, 
but  the  same  honest  doubts  which  later  came  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xix 

his  brother  turned  him  aside  to  the  Law,  and 
the  hereditary  mantle  fell  on  Waldo's  shoulders. 
Weak  lungs  and  eyes  interrupted  his  studies ; 
nevertheless,  in  Octo.ber,  1826,  he  was  "appro 
bated  to  preach  "  by  the  Middlesex  Association 
of  Ministers.  A  winter  at  the  North  at  this 
time  threatened  to  prove  fatal,  so,  helped  by 
his  generous  kinsman,  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley,  he 
sailed  for  Charleston  and  thence  to  Florida, 
where  he  passed  the  winter  with  benefit  at  St. 
Augustine.  In  the  spring  he  worked  northward, 
preaching  in  the  cities  through  which  he  passed, 
and  later  near  home,  as  opportunity  offered, 
while  pursuing  his  studies. 

In  1829  Mr.  Emerson  was  ordained  in  the 
Second  or  Old  North  Church  in  Boston  as 
associate  pastor  with  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  and 
soon  after,  because  of  his  senior's  delicate  health, 
was  called  on  to  assume  the  full  duty.  In  this 
year  he  also  was  chosen  chaplain  of  the  Senate. 
The  young  minister  entered  earnestly  upon  his 
duties,  although,  quoting  the  words  of  one  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  he  called  it  Onus 
angelicis  humeris  formidandum.  Theological  dog 
mas,  even  such  as  the  Unitarians  of  Channing's 
day  accepted,  did  not  appeal  to  Emerson,  nor 
did  the  supernatural  in  religion,  in  its  ordinary 


xx  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

acceptation,  interest  him.  The  living  God,  the 
solicitations  of  the  Spirit,  the  daily  miracle  of 
the  universe,  the  secure  compensations,  the 
dignity  of  man,  were  what  he  taught,  and,  though 
the  older  members  of  the  congregation  may 
have  been  disquieted  that  he  did  not  dwell  upon 
revealed  religion  or  the  offices  of  the  Christ,  his 
words  reached  the  young  people,  stirred  thought, 
and  wakened  aspiration. 

Because  of  his  shyness  the  pastoral  visits  to 
his  parishioners  were  less  easy  for  him  than 
helping  them  by  his  thought.  At  this  time  he 
lived  with  his  young  wife,  Ellen  Tucker,  and  his 
mother,  in  Chardon  Street.  For  nearly  four  years 
he  ministered  to  his  people  in  Boston,  then  his 
expanding  spirit  found  itself  cramped  by  custom 
and  tradition  even  in  the  most  liberal  church  of 
his  day.  Though  endeavoring  to  conform  to 
blameless  usage,  he  presently  felt  it  his  duty  to 
tell  his  congregation  that  he  could  not  regard 
the  rite  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  a  sacrament  es 
tablished  by  Christ  for  observance  through  the 
ages,  and  proposed  to  them  a  merely  commemo 
rative  service  without  the  elements.  This  change 
was  not  adopted,  and  the  question  whether  he 
ought  to  resign  his  charge  came  to  him.  To 
decide  this  he  went  for  solitary  thought  to  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xxi 

White  Mountains.  The  temptation  not  to  sacri 
fice,  on  a  matter  of  form,  a  position  of  usefulness 
for  which  he  had  been  trained,  and  in  which  he 
was  happy  and  valued,  was  great,  but  he  put  it 
behind  him  and  bravely  offered  his  resignation. 
He  and  his  people  parted  in  all  friendship,  many 
desiring  that  he  should  remain  on  his  own  terms. 
The  use  of  prayer  at  stated  times,  whether  the 
spirit  moved  or  not,  had  been  distressing  to  Mr. 
Emerson,  and  thereafter  he  always  declined  en 
gagements  where  this  was  required.  In  his  fare 
well  to  his  church  he  spoke  of  himself  as  still 
"  engaged  to  the  love  and  service  of  the  same 
eternal  cause.  .  .  .  To  me,  as  one  disciple,  is 
the  ministry  of  truth,  as  far  as  I  can  discern  and 
declare  it,  committed." 

This  was  the  darkest  time  in  Mr.  Emerson's 
life.  His  wife,  a  beautiful  and  spiritual  woman, 
had  died.  His  noble  brother  Edward  had  bro 
ken  down  from  overwork,  and  gone  to  Porto 
Rico,  where,  after  three  years'  exile  for  health,  he 
died.  He  himself  was  sick  and  sad.  On  Christ 
mas  Day,  1832,  he  sailed  for  the  Mediterranean 
to  recover  as  he  might. 

He  landed  in  Malta  and  went  thence  to  Sicily 
and  Naples.  The  sea  always  helped  him,  and, 
though  never  a  sight-seer  and  constantly  urged 


xxii  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

homeward  by  his  spirit  to  begin  the  new  life,  he 
found  useful  diversion  in  these  old-world  sights. 
As  the  philosophy  and  poetry  of  ancient  Greeks 
always  spoke  to  him,  so  now  in  Italy,  seeing 
their  sculptured  deities  and  heroes  and  the  con 
trast  between  these  faces  and  those  of  the  living 
throng  around,  he  said,  "  These  are  the  counte 
nances  of  the  first-born,  the  face  of  man  in  the 
morning  of  the  world."  The  Elgin  marbles,  seen 
later  in  London,  he  always  remembered  with 
delight.  Sculpture  seemed  nobler  to  him  than 
painting,  and,  though  greatly  moved  by  Rapha 
el's  Transfiguration,  the  work  of  Michel  An- 
gelo  —  St.  Peter's,  his  statues,  and  the  sculpture- 
painting  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  —  was  the  princi 
pal  gift  that  Rome  had  for  him.  The  engravings 
of  the  Sibyls  and  a  copy  of  the  Fates  thereafter 
adorned  his  study  walls.  He  tarried  in  Florence 
and  enjoyed  acquaintance  with  Landor.  There, 
he  tells  us,  he  did  homage  at  the  tomb  of  Gali 
leo.  But  he  quickly  sped  northward,  over  the 
Alps,  made  but  short  stay  in  Paris,  crossed  the 
Channel,  and  in  the  lonely  moorlands  of  the 
Scottish  Border  sought  out  the  man,  then  hardly 
recognized  in  England,  whose  writings  had  stirred 
him  at  home,  and  who  drew  him  thither  like  a 
magnet.  There  began  the  friendship  of  Emer- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xxiii 

son  and  Carlyle,  a  blessing  to  both,  and  lasting 
through  life. 

"  That  man,"  wrote  Carlyle  to  a  friend, 
"came  to  see  me.  I  don't  know  what  brought 
him,  and  we  kept  him  one  night,  and  then  he 
left  us.  I  saw  him  go  up  the  hill.  I  did  n't  go 
with  him  to  see  him  descend.  I  preferred  to 
watch  him  mount  and  vanish  like  an  angel  !  " 

On  September  i,  1833,  Emerson,  in  his  jour 
nal  at  Liverpool,  thanks  God  "that  He  has 
brought  me  to  the  shore  and  the  ship  that  steers 
westward.  He  has  shown  me  the  men  I  wished 
to  see,  Landor,  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  Wordsworth: 
He  has  thereby  comforted  and  confirmed  me  in 
my  convictions.  ...  I  am  very  glad  my  travel 
ling  is  done."  His  health  was  restored,  and  he  was 
eager  to  begin  life  anew.  For  the  thought  which 
he  expressed  in  "The  Over-Soul"  was  then 
burning  within  him,  —  "  When  we  have  broken 
our  god  of  tradition  and  ceased  from  our  god  of 
rhetoric,  then  may  God  fire  the  soul."  In  his 
journal  at  sea  he  wrote,  "  That  which  I  cannot 
yet  declare  has  been  my  angel  from  childhood 
until  now.  It  has  separated  me  from  men.  It 
has  watered  my  pillow.  ...  It  has  inspired  me 
with  hope.  It  cannot  be  defeated  by  my  defeats. 
,  .  .  It  is  the  c  open  secret '  of  the  Universe.  .  .  . 


xxiv  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

I  believe  in  this  life.  I  believe  it  continues.  As 
long  as  I  am  here,  I  plainly  read  my  duties  as 
writ  with  pencil  of  fire.  They  speak  not  of  death ; 
they  are  woven  of  immortal  thread/' 

Thus  he  landed  at  Boston  within  the  year  in 
good  health  and  hope,  and  joined  his  mother 
and  youngest  brother  Charles  in  Newton.  Fre 
quent  invitations  to  preach  still  came,  and  were 
accepted,  and  he  even  was  sounded  as  to  suc 
ceeding  Dr.  Dewey  in  the  church  at  New  Bed 
ford  ;  but,  as  he  stipulated  for  freedom  from 
ceremonial,  this  came  to  nothing.  In  his  visits 
to  New  Bedford  the  Friends,  with  their  doctrine 
of  Obedience,  interested  him. 

In  the  autumn  of  1 834  he  moved  to  Concord, 
living  with  his  kinsman,  Dr.  Ripley,  at  the 
Manse,  but  soon  bought  house  and  land  on  the 
Boston  Road,  on  the  edge  of  the  village  towards 
Walden  woods.  Thither,  in  the  following  au 
tumn,  he  brought  his  wife,  Miss  Lidian  Jackson, 
of  Plymouth,  and  this  was  their  home  during 
the  rest  of  their  lives. 

The  new  life  to  which  he  had  been  called 
opened  pleasantly  and  increased  in  happiness 
and  opportunity,  except  for  the  sadness  of  be 
reavements,  for,  in  the  first  few  years,  his  bril 
liant  brothers  Edward  and  Charles  died,  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xxv 

soon  afterward  Waldo,  his  first-born  son,  and 
later  his  mother.  Emerson  had  left  traditional 
religion,  the  city,  the  Old  World,  behind,  and 
now  went  to  Nature  as  his  teacher,  his  inspira 
tion.  His  first  book,  Nature,  which  he  was 
meditating  while  in  Europe,  was  finished  here, 
and  published  in  1 836.  When,  as  a  boy,  he  went 
with  William  to  the  Maine  woods,  he  wrote  to 
his  Aunt  Mary  that  he  found  enjoyment  there, 
but  not  inspiration.  "  You  should  have  gone 
alone,"  the  sibyl  answered.  And  now  he  went 
to  the  woods  near  his  door  to  find  her  word  true. 
As  God  liveth,  he  said, — 

The  word  unto  the  prophet  spoken 
Was  writ  on  tablets  still  unbroken, 
Still  floats  upon  the  morning  wind, 
Still  whispers  to  the  willing  mind. 

From  this  time  on,  to  the  last  days  of  his  life, 
except  when  on  his  lecturing  trips,  he  went 
almost  daily  to  the  woods  to  listen  for  the 
thoughts,  not  originated  by  him,  he  held,  though 
colored  by  the  temperament  of  the  individual 
through  which  these  inspirations  of  the  Univer 
sal  Mind  passed. 

Oh  what  are  heroes,  prophets,  men 

But  pipes  through  which  the  breath  of  Pan  doth  blow 

A  momentary  music  ? 


xxvi          BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

The  singing  of  the  pine-tree,  or  the 
harp,  passive  to  be  played  on  by  the  wild  wind, 
his  favorite  music,1  symbolized  his  belief. 

One  song  of  the  pine-tree  to  him  was  of 

The  genesis  of  things, 
Of  tendency  through  endless  ages, 
Of  star-dust  and  star-pilgrimages, 
The  rushing  metamorphosis. 

And  in  1836,  in  Nature,  he  told  how  — 

Striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 

Mounts  through  countless  spires  of  form. 

The  early  recognition  by  Emerson  of  Evolu 
tion  as  the  plan  of  the  Universe  in  his  first  book, 
and  everywhere  in  his  prose  and  verse,  has  often 
attracted  notice,  first,  I  think,  of  Mr.  Moncure 
D.  Conway  in  his  Emerson  at  Home  and  Abroad. 
A  question  so  interesting  should  be  consid 
ered  here  —  necessarily  briefly.  A  study  of  Mr. 
Emerson's  history  and  reading  suggests  these 
steps  as  those  by  which  his  beliefs  were  reached. 

1.  His  open  mind  and  hopeful  temperament. 

2.  His  poetic  nature   looked  on  beneficent 
law  as  universal,  working   alike  on  matter  or 

1  See   his    two    poems    «<  The    Harp,"    and    "  Maiden 
Speech  of  the  vEolian  Harp. ' ' 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH         xxvii 

spirit ;  hence  analogies  could  be  read  either  way 
from  one  to  the  other. 

3.  The  facts  of  Astronomy  and  the  Nebular- 
hypothesis  early  delighted  him. 

4.  The  poetic  teachings  of  the  ancient  phi 
losophers,  especially  "  The  Flowing  of  the  Uni 
verse  "  by  Heracleitus  and  the  "  Identity  "  by 
Xenophanes  and  others,  prepared  his  mind. 

5.  He  had  undoubtedly  early  read  of  Leib 
nitz's  scale  of  being  from  minerals  through  plants 
to  animals,  from  monad  to  man,  and  from  Cole 
ridge  knew   something  of  the   speculations  of 
Schelling  and  Oken. 

He  also,  in    1830,  read   with  interest   Lee's 
Life  of  Cuvier,  and  probably  in  Buffon. 

6.  He  recorded  in  his  Journal  and  in  his  lec 
ture  before  the   Natural   History  Society,  just 
after    his    return    from    Europe    in    1833,    the 
strange  feelings  of  relationship   that  had  been 
stirred  in  him  by  the  sight  of  the  animal  forms 
graded  from  lowest  to  highest  in  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes  Museum  in  Paris  "  and  the  upheaving 
principle    of  life   everywhere    incipient,   in  the 
very  rock  aping   organized   forms.  ...   I  am 
impressed  with  the  singular  conviction  that  not 
a  form  so  grotesque,  so  savage,  or  so  beautiful 
but  is  an  expression  of  something  in  man,  the 


xxviii          BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

observer.  We  feel  that  there  is  an  occult  relation 
between  the  very  worm,  the  crawling  scorpion 
and  man.  I  am  moved  to  strange  sympathies. 
I  say,  I  will  listen  to  this  invitation.  I  will  be  a 
Naturalist." 

In  December,  1833,  in  his  lecture  "The 
Relation  of  Man  to  the  Globe,"  he  spoke  of  the 
recent  discovery  of  a  fact  the  "  most  sublime," 
that  man  is  no  upstart  in  Creation,  but  has  been 
prophesied  in  Nature  for  a  thousand  thousand 
ages  before  he  appeared ;  that  from  times  in 
calculably  remote  there  has  been  a  progressive 
preparation  for  him,  an  effort  (as  physiologists 
say)  to  produce  him. 

7.  In  1835  Lyell's  book  on  Geology  came 
out  and  was  read  by  Emerson,  in  which  the 
ideas  of  Lamarck,  first  announced  in  1800, 
were  mentioned.  Mr.  Emerson  probably  came 
on  them  there.  These  doctrines  of  Variation  in 
animals  through  environment  and  "  effort,"  and 
the  transmission  of  these  peculiarities,  were  at 
first  ridiculed  or  neglected,  but  are  now  recog 
nized,  as  equally  necessary  in  Evolution  with 
Darwin's  Natural  Selection.  Darwin's  Origin 
of  Species  was  not  published  until  1859. 

In  1836,  in  a  lecture  given  in  Boston  on 
"The  Humanity  of  Science,"  Mr.  Emerson 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xxix 

alluded  to  Lamarck  as  "  finding  a  monad  of 
organic  life  common  to  every  animal,  and  be 
coming  a  worm,  a  mastiff  or  a  man,  according 
to  circumstances.  He  says  to  the  caterpillar, 
How  dost  thou,  brother  ?  Please  God  you  shall 
yet  be  a  philosopher." 

Lastly.  In  his  Essay  "  Poetry  and  Imagina 
tion/'  made  up  from  lectures,  some  of  which 
were  given  early,  Mr.  Emerson  credits  John 
Hunter  with  "  the  electric  word  arrested  and 
progressive  development,  indicating  the  way 
upward  from  the  invisible  protoplasm  to  the 
highest  organism  which  gave  the  poetic  key 
to  Natural  Science." 

Mr.  Conway  after  long  'search  found  inter 
esting  evolutionary  ideas  only  in  a  note  to 
Palmers'  edition  of  Hunter's  works,  but  not 
this  phrase. 

Mr.  Emerson,  in  some  notes  on  the  sketch 
of  John  Hunter  in  the  Biographie  Generate 
(Paris,  1858),  speaks  of  these  words  as  found 
by  Richard  Owen  in  Hunter's  Manuscripts^ 
and  in  1866  wrote  in  his  Journal :  — 

"  The  idea  which  haunted  John  Hunter,  that 

1  The  writer  in  the  Biographie  Generate  y  dwelling'  on  a 
likeness  between  the  ideas  of  Hunter  and  Harvey,  says  : 
"  Cette  filiation  se  retrouve  egalement  dans  un  autre  ordre 


xxx          BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

life  was  independent  of  organization  protecting 
and  re-creating  the  parts  and  varying  its  means 
of  action,  he  never  succeeded  in  expressing  but 
in  his  museum."  Possibly  Owen  himself  said 
this  to  Emerson,  as  the  word  progressive  does 
not  appear  in  the  Biographie  Generale  notice. 

From  books,  and  from  men,  alike  in  the 
laboratory,  the  counting-room,  on  the  farm,  he 
eagerly  collected  his  material  —  "  dull,  despised 
facts  "  which  he  found  were  "  pearls  and  rubies 
to  his  discourse."  cc  They  do  not  know  what 
to  do  with  their  facts.  I  know  ; "  for  behind 
each  was  a  law  of  spirit  as  well  as  of  matter,  in 
however  humble  guise.  The  great  significance 
of  Evolution  was  its  warrant  with  him.  After 
leaving  his  church  he  found  that  "  the  man  of 
to-day  scarcely  recognizes  the  man  of  yester 
day,"  yet  the  high  aim  in  both  was  the  same  — 
"  as  the  shellfish  crawls  out  of  its  beautiful  but 

d'idees  dans  cette  phrase  remarquable  que  M.  Owen  a 
trouvee  dans  les  manuscrits  de  Hunter,  et  qui  contient  en 
germe,  quoique  avec  une  expression  tres-peu  nette,  les  theo 
ries  actuelles  stir  r arret  de  d'eveloppement ;  "  and  then  gives 
a  quotation  of  some  length,  the  substance  of  which  may  be 
thus  translated  :  "  If  we  take  a  series  of  animals  from  the 
most  imperfect  to  the  most  perfect,  we  there  shall  probably 
find  an  imperfect  animal  corresponding  to  each  stage  of  the 
development  of  the  most  perfect. ' ' 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xxxi 

stony  cave  because  it  no  longer  admits  of  its 
growth."  Now  he  spoke  on  week  days  to 
hearers,  who  did  not  come  from  custom,  on 
the  same  high  themes,  but  in  freer  language 
and  with  richer  illustration,  and  found  ready 
acceptance  from  the  young  in  years  or  spirit. 
Those  who  shared  the  general  social,  intellec 
tual,  and  spiritual  awakening  that  came  from 
various  causes  to  New  England  at  that  time, 
were  called  Transcendentalists.  "  I  told  Mr. 

M ,"  said   Mr.    Emerson,   "  that  he   need 

not  consult  the  Germans,  but  if  he  wished  at 
any  time  to  know  what  the  Transcendentalists 
believed,  he  might  simply  omit  what  in  his  own 
mind  he  added  [to  his  simple  perception]  from 
the  tradition,  and  the  rest  would  be  Transcen 
dentalism." 

In  1837  Mr.  Emerson  made  his  notable 
address,  "  The  American  Scholar,"  to  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge.  It  was  well 
received  and  advanced  his  repute  as  a  thinker 
and  writer.  But  the  next  year,  when,  invited 
by  the  graduating  class  at  the  Divinity  School, 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  tell  them  bravely  that 
they  could  well  spare  tradition,  and  the  soul 
might  regard  any  mediation  between  itself  and 
the  living  God  as  impertinent,  he  had  the  old 


xxxii          BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

conditions  to  deal  with,  —  the  presence,  alert 
for  heresy,  of  men  pledged  and  committed  to 
the  tradition.  These  pained  or  outraged  guard 
ians  of  the  flock  remonstrated,  or  fiercely  dis 
claimed  complicity  in  this  occurrence. 

The  stern  old  war-gods  shook  their  heads, 
The  seraphs  frowned  from  myrtle  beds  ; 
Seemed  to  the  holy  festival 
The  rash  word  boded  ill  to  all.   ' 

Mr.  Emerson  declined  to  argue  his  case.  The 
thought  given  to  his  earnest  prayer  he  had 
delivered,  and  he  withdrew,  leaving  it  to  do 
its  work.  "  As  like  a  sunbeam  he  glided  into 
the  conclave,  so  like  a  sunbeam  he  glided  out." 
Returning  to  his  woodlands  to  contemplate  the 
daily  miracle  of  Nature,  he  said  with  St.  Augus 
tine,  Wrangle  who  will,  I  will  work.  His  poem 
"  Uriel,"  if  carefully  read,  will  be  seen  to  be  an 
exact  but  sublimed  account  of  this  experience. 
Uriel,  archangel  of  the  sun,  was  chosen  as  one 
who  from  a  central  position  sees  all  things  in 
their  ordered  courses,  where  those  in  eccentric 
positions  see  perturbations.  Yet  Emerson  did 
not  lack  defenders  who  then  could  see  that 
he  was  no  Atheist,  —  denied  personality  to  God 
"  because  it  was  too  little,  not  too  much."  As  for 
the  Pantheism  of  his  "  Universal  Mind,"  their 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH         xxxiii 

Bibles  told  of  "  Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being."  Mr.  Emerson  was  more 
troubled  by  the  notoriety  involved  than  by  the 
attacks.  Yet  his  Journal  at  this  time  shows  that 
he  thought  his  heresies  might  cut  off  his  source 
of  earning  by  lectures,  and  felt  that  he  must 
become  a  more  skilful  gardener  and  rely  on  his 
planting.  He  mentions  the  discovery  that  "if 
you  put  one  potato  in  the  ground  you  found 
ten,  the  true  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes." 

For  thirty  years  thereafter  the  official  doors 
of  Harvard  College  were  shut  to  him.  But  the 
tempest  was,  as  he  said,  "  in  a  wash  bowl,"  and 
the  country  colleges  still  bade  him  to  speak  to 
them,  a  service  in  which  he  always  expressed 
delight,  —  the  showing  them  that  "  the  Scholar 
had  drawn  the  white  lot  in  life,"  and  that  his 
responsibility  was  proportionate.  At  this  time 
he  prepared  his  two  volumes  of  Essays. 

Although  he  had  few  close  friendships  and 
said  that  he  had  not  animal  spirits  enough  even 
for  near  friends,  he  was  always  surrounded  by 
friends  known  and  unknown.  He  was  fortunate 
in  having  two  noble  women  close  by  him,  Miss 
Hoar,  the  betrothed  of  his  brother  Charles,  and 
Mrs.  Samuel  Ripley,  the  wife  of  his  uncle,  a  wo 
man  of  eager  interest  in  all  that  was  good.  Her 


xxxiv         BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

brother,  Mr.  Bradford,  a  gentle  scholar,  was  a 
near  friend,  and  Mr.  Emerson  took  great  delight 
in  the  manly  sincerity  and  knowledge  of  Nature 
of  Henry  Thoreau,  who  for  some  years  was  a 
member  of  his  household.  He  sometimes  met 
the  shy  and  interesting  Hawthorne,  his  neigh 
bor,  and  soon  Mr.  Alcott  came  also  to  Con 
cord.  Of  him  he  said,  "  The  ideal  world  I  might 
have  treated  as  cloud-land,  had  I  not  known 
Alcott,  who  is  a  native  of  that  country  and  makes 
it  as  solid  as  Massachusetts  for  me." 

Mr.  Emerson's  wide  hospitality,  to  the  souls 
as  well  as  bodies  of  men,  brought  to  his  door 
many  visitors,  inspiring  or  exacting,  inspired 
or  possessed.  His  habit  of  imputing  virtue, 
or  of  "  taking  people  by  their  best  handles," 
brought  out  their  best,  but  some  were  hope 
less  "  monotones,"  of  one  of  whom  he  said : 
"  He  will  not  listen  in  company  which  is  much, 
but,  what  is  worse,  when  he  is  alone."  He 
writes  :  — 

"  When  the  narrow-minded  and  unworthy 
shall  knock  at  my  gate,  I  will  say  come,  now 
will  I  sacrifice  to  the  gods  below ;  then  will  I 
entertain  my  guests  heartily  and  handsomely. 
Besides,  is  it  for  thee  to  choose  what  shadows 
shall  pass  over  thy  magical  mirror  ?  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH          xxxv 

Of  one  he  made  this  humorous  parable:  "As 
for  walking  with  Heraclitus,"  said  Theanor,  "  I 
know  nothing  less  interesting.  I  had  as  lief 
talk  with  my  own  conscience."  He  often  had 
Swedenborg's  statement  in  mind:  "Angels  have 
no  idea  of  time."  One  of  his  nearest  friends, 
still  living,  has  lately  published  anonymously 
some  of  Emerson's  letters  to  him  showing  his 
ideals  of  friendship.1 

The  Lyceum  was  Emerson's  open  pulpit. 
His  main  occupation  through  life  was  reading 
lectures  to  who  would  hear,  at  first  in  courses  in 
Boston,  but  later  all  over  the  country,  for  the 
Lyceum  sprang  up  in  New  England  in  these 
years  in  every  town,  and  spread  westward  to  the 
new  settlements  even  beyond  the  Mississippi. 
His  winters  were  spent  in  these  rough,  but  to 
him  interesting  journeys,  for  he  loved  to  watch 
tri£  growth  of  the  Republic,  in  which  he  had 
faith.  His  summers  were  spent  in  study  and 
writing.  The  thoughts  gathering  in  his  journals 
presently  found  their  affinities,  one  with  another, 
and  suggested  the  theme  for  the  next  course 
of  lectures.  Tested  by  this  trial-trip,  the  joints 
looked  after  (but  not  too  closely,  for  it  was  im 
portant  that  the  spark  should  pass  in  the  mind 

1  Emerson's  Letters  to  a  Friend.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


xxxvi        BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

of  the  hearer),  the  roughnesses  smoothed,  and 
with  every  superfluous  passage  or  word  cut 
away,  the  best  in  the  lectures  appeared  later  as 
the  Essays,  of  which  seven  volumes  of  different 
names  appeared  between  1841  and  1876.  The 
courses  in  Boston,  which  at  first  were  given  in 
the  Masonic  Temple,  were  always  well  attended 
by  earnest  and  thoughtful  people.  The  young, 
whether  in  years  or  in  spirit,  were  always  and  to 
the  end  his  audience  of  the  spoken  or  written 
word.  The  freedom  of  the  Lyceum  platform 
pleased  Emerson.  He  found  that  people  would 
hear  on  Wednesday  with  approval  and  unsus 
pectingly  doctrines  from  which  on  Sunday  they 
felt  officially  obliged  to  dissent. 

Mr.  Lowell,  in  his  essays,  has  spoken  of 
these  early  lectures  and  what  they  were  worth 
to  him  and  others  suffering  from  the  generous 
discontent  of  youth  with  things  as  they  were. 
Emerson  used  to  say,  "  My  strength  and  my 
doom  is  to  be  solitary  "  ;  but  to  a  retired  scholar 
a  wholesome  offset  to  this  seclusion  was  the 
travelling  and  lecturing  in  cities  and  in  raw 
frontier  towns,  bringing  him  into  touch  with 
the  people,  and  this  he  knew  and  valued.  He 
was  everywhere  a  learner,  expecting  light  from 
the  youngest  arid  least  educated  companion. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH        xxxvii 

From  the  first  he  never  "  came  down  to  his 
audience."  He  had  faith  in  the  intelligence 
and  ideals  of  Americans,  and  his  lectures  were 
well  received,  and  called  for  again.  The  aston 
ished  curiosity  about  American  audiences  for 
such  thoughts  as  his,  expressed  by  both  Carlyle 
and  Sterling  in  their  letters  to  him,  is  amusing. 
Herman  Grimm  says  that  Emerson  preferred 
not  to  speak  to  those  who  read  or  had  read, 
but  to  those  that  had  ears  to  hear,  and  that  he 
resembled  Shakspeare  in  that  he  can  be  read 
without  preparation. 

In  1847  Emerson  was  invited  to  read  lec 
tures  in  England,  and  he  went  thither  and  re 
mained  abroad  a  year,  seeing  old  friends  and 
new.  English  Traits  was  the  result.  At  that 
time  he  made  also  a  short  visit  to  France  in  her 
troublous  times. 

In  writing  to  John  Sterling  in  1840,  in  ac 
knowledgment  of  his  volume  of  poems,  Mr. 
Emerson  had  expressed  his  faith,  founded  on  his 
ardent  wish,  "  that  one  day  —  I  ask  not  where 
or  when  —  I  shall  attain  to  the  speech  of  this 
splendid  dialect;  .  .  .  and  these  wishes,  I  sup 
pose,  are  ever  only  the  buds  of  power,  but  up  to 
this  hour  I  have  never  had  a  true  success  in 
such  attempts." 


xxxviii        BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

From  boyhood  he  had  written  verses,  at  first 
correct  in  metre  and  stilted  in  expression,  on 
eighteenth-century  models  ;  but  in  the  ten  years 
preceding  his  visit  to  England  his  verse  had 
shown  the  influence  of  his  growth ;  indeed  the 
thoughts  in  all  the  essays  had  been  cast  in  po 
etic  mould,  many  of  them  showing  the  influence 
of  the  Bardic  poems,  the  thought  roughly  cast 
at  white  heat.  Many  of  his  poems  first  ap 
peared  in  the  Dial.  The  Poems  were  published 
in  1846.  May-Day,  a  second  collection,  more 
mellowed  and  finished,  followed  in  1867.  Both 
are  now  included  in  one  volume,  in  which  the 
history  of  some  of  the  poems  will  be  given 
in  the  notes.  Emerson  was  primarily  a  poet, 
whether  in  prose  or  rhyme,  though  he  struggled 
long  to  attain  rhythmical  expression.  He  said, 
"  I  like  my"  poems  best  because  it  is  not  I  who 
write  them."  He  consoled  himself  for  not  hav 
ing  a  musical  ear  in  having  (C  musical  eyes."  He 
said,  "  Good  poetry  must  be  affirmative.  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  should  begin  the  song." 

The  reforms  of  the  day  were  honored  and 
helped  by  Emerson,  but  he  would  not  "  mistake 
others'  chivalries  for  his  own."  He  said  :  "  My 
reforms  include  theirs  "  ;  and  again,  "  I  have 
quite  other  slaves  to  free  than  those  negroes,  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH         xxxix 

wit,  imprisoned  spirits,  imprisoned  thoughts." 
But  in  times  of  doubt  and  danger  he  failed  not 
to  bring  his  lance  to  help  as  a  brave  volunteer. 
Early  and  always  he  spoke  out  for  human 
freedom.  In  his  ode  at  the  celebration  of  the 
Fourth  of  July  in  1856  were  the  lines  as  he 
would  write  them  again  to-day  — 

United  States  !  the  ages  plead,  — 
Present  and  Past,  in  under-song, 

Go  put  your  creed  into  your  deed, 
Nor  speak  with  double  tongue. 

For  sea  and  land  don't  understand, 

Nor  skies  without  a  frown 
See  rights  for  which  the  one  hand  rights 

By  the  other  cloven  down. 

As  he  was  a  good  citizen  of  his  village  and  a 
patriotic  American,  so  he  was  a  happy  and  trust 
ing  soul  in  the  Universe,  seeing  everywhere,  in 
Protean  forms,  the  inseparable  Trinity  of  Truth, 
Goodness  and  Beauty. 

Mr.  Emerson  tells  us  that  as  a  boy  he 
pleased  himself  as  he  lay  on  his  bed  with  the 
beauty  of  the  Lord's  equilibrium  in  the  Uni 
verse,  instead  of  shuddering  at  the  terrors  of 
his  judgment,  —  that  all  was  so  intelligible  and 
sweet,  instead  of  inscrutable  and  dire. 


x\  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

Secure  and  happy  in  his  assurance  of  the  law 
of  compensation,  though  in  his  manhood  he  fell 
on  evil  times,  when  even  in  Boston  free  thought, 
free  speech,  free  action  were  unpopular  to  the 
verge  of  danger,  Unitarian  and  Transcendental 
heresies  scourged  or  ridiculed  and  the  cause  of 
human  freedom,  in  the  hands  of  a  despised  few, 
seemed  almost  hopeless,  he  lived  to  see  these 
causes  everywhere  winning,  and  their  champions 
honored.  Mr.  John  Albee  in  his  Remembrances 
of  Emerson1  said :  "  I  am  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  he  never  made  any  mistakes  throughout 
his  career.  He  faced  one  way  and  continued 
to  face  that  way.  He  never  had  to  recant,  to 
make  a  new  start,  to  modify,  or  apologize."  He 
said  in  his  early  manhood,  "  If  the  single  man 
plant  himself  indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and 
there  abide,  the  huge  world  will  come  round  to 
him." 

The  year  after  the  end  of  the  Civil  War,  in 
the  triumph  of  freedom,  Mr.  Emerson  was  again 
invited  to  give  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at 
Harvard,  and  was  shortly  after  chosen  a  member 
of  the  Board  of  Overseers.  In  1870  and  1871 
he  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  on  Philosophy 
there,  but  the  undertaking  was  too  much  for  his 
1  Remembrances  of  Emerson,  by  John  Albee. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  xli 

strength,  which  had  begun  to  fail.  A  friend 
carried  him  with  a  pleasure  party  to  California 
for  rest  and  recreation.  Professor  James  B. 
Thayer,  a  member  of  the  party,  wrote  the  story 
of  that  trip.1  But  Mr.  Emerson's  forces  had 
failed  more  than  was  then  realized,  and  the  next 
year  the  exposure  and  fatigue  incident  to  the 
accidental  burning  of  his  house  prostrated  him 
seriously.  Loyal  friends  took  upon  themselves 
the  gracious  task  of  restoring  his  house  com 
pletely,  and  meanwhile  sent  him  to  the  Old 
World  to  recruit  his  forces.  A  winter  with  his 
daughter  in  Italy  and  on  the  Nile  helped,  but 
could  not  restore  him.  On  his  return  he  found 
himself  unable  to  prepare  a  promised  book 
of  essays  (Letters  and  Social  Aims].  This  task 
was  cheerfully  accomplished  by  his  trusted  and 
valued  friend,  the  late  Mr.  James  Elliot  Cabot, 
who  afterward,  at  the  desire  of  the  family, 
wrote  the  admirable  Memoir  of 'Emerson ,  and  in 
1883  prepared  the  posthumous  edition  of  the 
Works. 

Mr.  Emerson,  unable  to  do  active  literary  work, 
lived  a  quiet  and  happy  life  among  his  friends  and 
his  books,  still  going  often  to  hear  the  song  of 
the  pines  by  Walden,  until  the  last  days  of  April, 

1  A  Western  Journey  with  Emerson,  by  James  B.  Thayer. 


xlii  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

1882,  when  he  died  of  pneumonia  after  a  short 
illness. 

His  life,  brave,  serene  and  happy,  was  in  exact 
accord  with  his  words  :  — 

The  sun  set,  but  set  not  his  hope  ; 
Stars  rose,  his  faith  was  earlier  up. 

E.  W.  E. 


NATURE 

A  SUBTLE  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings  ; 
The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose  ; 
And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form. 


INTRODUCTION 

OUR  age  is  retrospective.  It  builds  the  sep 
ulchres  of  the  fathers.  It  writes  biogra 
phies,  histories,  and  criticism.  The  foregoing 
generations  beheld  God  and  nature  face  to  face  ; 
we,  through  their  eyes.  Why  should  not  we  also 
enjoy  an  original  relation  to  the  universe  ?  Why 
should  not  we  have  a  poetry  and  philosophy  of 
insight  and  not  of  tradition,  and  a  religion  by 
revelation  to  us,  and  not  the  history  of  theirs  ? 
Embosomed  for  a  season  in  nature,  whose  floods 
of  life  stream  around  and  through  us,  and  invite 
us,  by  the  powers  they  supply,  to  action  propor 
tioned  to  nature,  why  should  we  grope  among 
the  dry  bones  of  the  past,  or  put  the  living 
generation  into  masquerade  out  of  its  faded 
wardrobe  ?  The  sun  shines  to-day  also.  There 
is  more  wool  and  flax  in  the  fields.  There  are 
new  lands,  new  men,  new  thoughts.  Let  us  de 
mand  our  own  works  and  laws  and  worship. 

Undoubtedly  we  have  no  questions  to  ask 
which  are  unanswerable.  We  must  trust  the 
perfection  of  the  creation  so  far  as  to  believe 
that  whatever  curiosity  the  order  of  things  has 


4  NATURE 

awakened  in  our  minds,  the  order  of  things  can 
satisfy.  Every  man's  condition  is  a  solution  in 
hieroglyphic  to  those  inquiries  he  would  put.1 
He  acts  it  as  life,  before  he  apprehends  it  as 
truth.  In  like  manner,  nature  is  already,  in  its 
forms  and  tendencies,  describing  its  own  design. 
Let  us  interrogate  the  great  apparition  that  shines 
so  peacefully  around  us.  Let  us  inquire,  to  what 
/  end  is  nature  ? 

All  science  has  one  aim,  namely,  to  find  a 
theory  of  nature.  We  have  theories  of  races  and 
of  functions,  but  scarcely  yet  a  remote  approach 
to  an  idea  of  creation.2  We  are  now  so  far  from 
the  road  to  truth,  that  religious  teachers  dis 
pute  and  hate  each  other,  and  speculative  men 
are  esteemed  unsound  and  frivolous.  But  to  a 
sound  judgment,  the  most  abstract  truth  is  the 
most  practical.  Whenever  a  true  theory  appears, 
it  will  be  its  own  evidence.  Its  test  is,  that 
it  will  explain  all  phenomena.  Now  many  are 
thought  not  only  unexplained  but  inexplicable  ; 
as  language,  sleep,  madness,  dreams,  beasts,  sex. 
Philosophically  considered,  the  universe  is 
composed  of  Nature  and  the  Soul.  Strictly 
speaking,  therefore,  all  that  is  separate  from  us, 
all  which  Philosophy  distinguishes  as  the  NOT 
ME,  that  is,  both  nature  and  art,  all  other  men 


INTRODUCTION  5 

and  my  own  body,  must  be  ranked  under  this 
name,  NATURE.  In  enumerating  the  values  of 
nature  and  casting  up  their  sum,  I  shall  use  the 
word  in  both  senses; — in  its  common  and  in  its 
philosophical  import.  In  inquiries  so  general  as 
our  present  one,  the  inaccuracy  is  not  material ; 
no  confusion  of  thought  will  occur.  Nature,  in 
the  common  sense,  refers  to  essences  unchanged 
by  man  ;  space,  the  air,  the  river,  the  leaf.  Art 
is  applied  to  the  mixture  of  his  will  with  the 
same  things,  as  in  a  house,  a  canal,  a  statue,  a 
picture.  But  his  operations  taken  together  are 
so  insignificant,  a  little  chipping,  baking,  patch 
ing,  and  washing,  that  in  an  impression  so  grand 
as  that  of  the  world  on  the  human  mind,  they 
do  not  vary  the  result. 


NATURE 


TO  go  into  solitude,  a  man  needs  to  retire 
as  much  from  his  chamber  as  from  soci 
ety.  I  am  not  solitary  whilst  I  read  and  write, 
though  nobody  is  with  me.  But  if  a  man 
would  be  alone,  let  him  look  at  the  stars.  The 
rays  that  come  from  those  heavenly  worlds  will 
separate  between  him  and  what  he  touches. 
One  might  think  the  atmosphere  was  made 
transparent  with  this  design,  to  give  man,  in  the 
heavenly  bodies,  the  perpetual  presence  of  the 
sublime.  Seen  in  the  streets  of  cities,  how  great 
they  are  !  If  the  stars  should  appear  one  night 
in  a  thousand  years,  how  would  men  believe  and 
adore ;  and  preserve  for  many  generations  the 
remembrance  of  the  city  of  God  which  had  been 
shown  !  But  every  night  come  out  these  envoys 
of  beauty,  and  light  the  universe  with  their  ad 
monishing  smile.1 

The  stars  awaken  a  certain  reverence,  because 
though  always  present,  they  are  inaccessible ;  but 
all  natural  objects  make  a  kindred  impression, 
when  the  mind  is  open  to  their  influence.  Nat- 


8  NATURE 

ture  never  wears  a  mean  appearance.  Neither 
does  the  wisest  man  extort  her  secret,  and  lose 
his  curiosity  by  rinding  out  all  her  perfection. 
Nature  never  became  a  toy  to  a  wise  spirit.  The 
flowers,  the  animals,  the  mountains,  reflected  the 
wisdom  of  his  best  hour,  as  much  as  they  had 
delighted  the  simplicity  of  his  childhood. 

When  we  speak  of  nature  in  this  manner,  we 
have  a  distinct  but  most  poetical  sense  in  the 
mind.    We  mean   the   integrity  of  impression 
made  by  manifold   natural  objects.    It   is  this 
which  distinguishes  the  stick  of  timber  of  the 
wood-cutter  from  the  tree  of  the  poet.     The 
charming  landscape  which  I  saw  this  morning  is 
indubitably  made  up  of  some  twenty  or  thirty 
farms.    Miller  owns  this  field,  Locke  that,  and 
Manning  the  woodland  beyond.    But  none  of 
them  owns  the  landscape.    There  is  a  property 
/"in  the  horizon  which  no  man  has  but  he  whose 
^  |  eye  can  integrate  all  the  parts,  that  is,  the  poet. 
/  This  is  the  best  part  of  these  men's  farms,  yet 
'•  to  this  their  warranty-deeds  give  no  title. 

To  speak  truly,  few  adult  persons  can  see  na- 

>/     ture.    Most  persons  do  not  see  the   sun.    At 

least  they  have  a  very  superficial  seeing.    The 

sun  illuminates  only  the  eye  of  the  man,  but 

shines  into  the  eye  and  the  heart  of  the  child. 


NATURE  9 

The  lover  of  nature  is  he  whose  inward  and 
outward  senses  are  still  truly  adjusted  to  each 
other ;  who  has  retained  the  spirit  of  infancy 
even  into  the  era  of  manhood.1  His  intercourse 
with  heaven  and  earth  becomes  part  of  his  daily 
food.2  In  the  presence  of  nature  a  wild  delight 
runs  through  the  man,  in  spite  of  real  sorrows. 
Nature  says,  —  he  is  my  creature,  and  maugre 
all  his  impertinent  griefs,  he  shall  be  glad  with 
me.  Not  the  sun  or  the  summer  alone,  but 
every  hour  and  season  yields  its  tribute  of  de 
light;  for  every  hour  and  change  corresponds  to 
and  authorizes  a  different  state  of  the  mind,  from 
breathless  noon  to  grimmest  midnight.  Nature 
is  a  setting  that  fits  equally  well  a  comic  or  a 
mourning  piece.3  In  good  health,  the  air  is  a 
cordial  of  incredible  virtue.  Crossing  a  bare 
common,  in  snow  puddles,  at  twilight,  under  a 
clouded  sky,  without  having  in  my  thoughts 
any  occurrence  of  special  good  fortune,  I  have 
enjoyed  a  perfect  exhilaration.  I  am  glad  to  the 
brink  of  fear.  In  the  woods,  too,  a  man  casts 
off  his  years,  as  the  snake  his  slough,  and  at  what 
period  soever  of  life  is  always  a  child.  In  the 
woods  is  perpetual  youth.  Within  these  planta 
tions  of  God,  a  decorum  and  sanctity  reign,  a 
perennial  festival  is  dressed,  and  the  guest  sees 


io  NATURE 

not  how  he  should  tire  of  them  in  a  thousand 
years.  In  the  woods,  we  return  to  reason  and 
faith.  There  I  feel  that  nothing  can  befall  me 
in  life,  —  no  disgrace,  no  calamity  (leaving  me 
my  eyes),  which  nature  cannot  repair.  Standing 
on  the  bare  ground,  —  my  head  bathed  by  the 
blithe  air  and  uplifted  into  infinite  space,  —  all 
mean  egotism  vanishes.  I  become  a  transparent 
eyeball ;  I  am  nothing  ;  I  see  all ;  the  currents 
of  the  Universal  Being  circulate  through  me ;  I 
am  part  or  parcel  of  God.1  The  name  of  the 
nearest  friend  sounds  then  foreign  and  acciden 
tal  :  to  be  brothers,  to  be  acquaintances,  mas 
ter  or  servant,  is  then  a  trifle  and  a  disturbance. 
I  am  the  lover  of  uncontained  and  immortal 
beauty.  In  the  wilderness,  I  find  something 
more  dear  and  connate  than  in  streets  or  vil 
lages.  In  the  tranquil  landscape,  and  especially 
in  the  distant  line  of  the  horizon,  man  beholds 
somewhat  as  beautiful  as  his  own  nature. 

The  greatest  delight  which  the  fields  and 
woods  minister  is  the  suggestion  of  an  occult 
relation  between  man  and  the  vegetable.  I  am 
not  alone  and  unacknowledged.  They  nod  to 
me,  and  I  to  them.  The  waving  of  the  boughs 
in  the  storm  is  new  to  me  and  old.  It  takes 
me  by  surprise,  and  yet  is  not  unknown.  Its 


NATURE  ii 

effect  is  like  that  of  a  higher  thought  or  a  bet 
ter  emotion  coming  over  me,  when  I  deemed  I 
was  thinking  justly  or  doing  right. 

Yet  it  is  certain  that  the  power  to  produce 
this  delight  does  not  reside  in  nature,  but  in 
man,  or  in  a  harmony  of  both.  It  is  necessary 
to  use  these  pleasures  with  great  temperance. 
For  nature  is  not  always  tricked  in  holiday  at 
tire,  but  the  same  scene  which  yesterday  breathed 
perfume  and  glittered  as  for  the  frolic  of  the 
nymphs  is  overspread  with  melancholy  to-day. 
Nature  always  wears  the  colors  of  the  spirit.  To 
a  man  laboring  under  calamity,  the  heat  of  his 
own  fire  hath  sadness  in  it.  Then  there  is  a 
kind  of  contempt  of  the  landscape  felt  by  him 
who  has  just  lost  by  death  a  dear  friend.  The 
sky  is  less  grand  as  it  shuts  down  over  less 

worth  in  the  population.1 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


II 
COMMODITY 

WHOEVER  considers  the  final  cause  of 
the  world  will  discern  a  multitude  of 
uses  that  enter  as  parts  into  that  result.  They 
all  admit  of  being  thrown  into  one  of  the  follow 
ing  classes  :  Commodity ;  Beauty  ;  Language ; 
and  Discipline. 

Under  the  general  name  of  commodity,  I  rank 
all  those  advantages  which  our  senses  owe  to  na 
ture.  This,  of  course,  is  a  benefit  which  is  tem 
porary  and  mediate,  not  ultimate,  like  its  service 
to  the  soul.  Yet  although  low,  it  is  perfect  in 
its  kind,  and  is  the  only  use  of  nature  which  all 
men  apprehend.  The  misery  of  man  appears 
like  childish  petulance,  when  we  explore  the 
steady  and  prodigal  provision  that  has  been 
made  for  his  support  and  delight  on  this  green 
ball  which  floats  him  through  the  heavens. 
What  angels  invented  these  splendid  orna 
ments,  these  rich  conveniences,  this  ocean  of  air 
above,  this  ocean  of  water  beneath,  this  firma 
ment  of  earth  between  ?  this  zodiac  of  lights, 
this  tent  of  dropping  clouds,  this  striped  coat 


COMMODITY  13 

of  climates,  this  fourfold  year  ? '  Beasts,  fire, 
water,  stones,  and  corn  serve  him.  The  field  is 
at  once  his  floor,  his  work-yard,  his  play-ground, 
his  garden,  and  his  bed. 

"  More  servants  wait  on  man 
Than  he  '11  take  notice  of."  2 

Nature,  in  its  ministry  to  man,  is  not  only  the 
material,  but  is  also  the  process  and  the  result. 
All  the  parts  incessantly  work  into  each  other's 
hands  for  the  profit  of  man.  The  wind  sows  the 
seed ;  the  sun  evaporates  the  sea ;  the  wind 
blows  the  vapor  to  the  field ;  the  ice,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  planet,  condenses  rain  on  this  ; 
the  rain  feeds  the  plant ;  the  plant  feeds  the 
animal ;  and  thus  the  endless  circulations  of  the 
divine  charity  nourish  man. 

The  useful  arts  are  reproductions  or  new  com 
binations  by  the  wit  of  man,  of  the  same  natural 
benefactors.  He  no  longer  waits  for  favoring 
gales,  but  by  means  of  steam,  he  realizes  the 
fable  of  bolus's  bag,  and  carries  the  two  and 
thirty  winds  in  the  boiler  of  his  boat.  To  di 
minish  friction,  he  paves  the  road  with  iron  bars, 
and,  mounting  a  coach  with  a  ship-load  of  men, 
animals,  and  merchandise  behind  him,  he  darts 
through  the  country,  from  town  to  town,  like  an 
eagle  or  a  swallow  through  the  air.  By  the 


i4  NATURE 

aggregate  of  these  aids,  how  is  the  face  of  the 
world  changed,  from  the  era  of  Noah  to  that  of 
Napoleon  !  The  private  poor  man  hath  cities,, 
ships,  canals,  bridges,  built  for  him.  He  goes  to 
the  post-office,  and  the  human  race  run  on  his 
errands;  to  the  book-shop,  and  the  human  race 
read  and  write  of  all  that  happens,  for  him  ;  to 
the  court-house,  and  nations  repair  his  wrongs. 
He  sets  his  house  upon  the  road,  and  the  human 
race  go  forth  every  morning,  and  shovel  out  the 
snow,  and  cut  a  path  for  him. 

But  there  is  no  need  of  specifying  particulars 
in  this  class  of  uses.  The  catalogue  is  endless, 
and  the  examples  so  obvious,  that  I  shall  leave 
them  to  the  reader's  reflection,  with  the  general 
remark,  that  this  mercenary  benefit  is  one  which 
has  respect  to  a  farther  good.  A  man  is  fed,  not 
that  he  may  be  fed,  but  that  he  may  work.1 


Ill 
BEAUTY 

\  NOBLER  want  of  man  is  served  by  na- 
JL\.  ture,  namely,  the  love  of  Beauty. 

The  ancient  Greeks  called  the  world  KOCT/LIOS, 
beauty.  Such  is  the  constitution  of  all  things,  or 
such  the  plastic  power  of  the  human  eye,  that 
the  primary  forms,  as  the  sky,  the  mountain, 
the  tree,  the  animal,  give  us  a  delight  in  and  for 
themselves;  a  pleasure  arising  from  outline,  color, 
motion,  and  grouping.  This  seems  partly  owing 
to  the  eye  itself.  The  eye  is  the  best  of  artists. 
By  the  mutual  action  of  its  structure  and  of  the 
laws  of  light,  perspective  is  produced,  which  in 
tegrates  every  mass  of  objects,  of  what  character 
soever,  into  a  well  colored  and  shaded  globe,  so 
that  where  the  particular  objects  are  mean  and 
unaffecting,  the  landscape  which  they  compose  is 
round  and  symmetrical.  And  as  the  eye  is  the 
best  composer,  so  light  is  the  first  of  painters. 
There  is  no  object  so  foul  that  intense  light  will 
not  make  beautiful.  And  the  stimulus  it  affords 
to  the  sense,  and  a  sort  of  infinitude  which  it 
hath,  like  space  and  time,  make  all  matter  gay. 


1 6  NATURE 

Even  the  corpse  has  its  own  beauty.1  But  be 
sides  this  general  grace  diffused  over  nature, 
almost  all  the  individual  forms  are  agreeable  to 
the  eye,  as  is  proved  by  our  endless  imitations 
of  some  of  them,  as  the  acorn,  the  grape,  the 
pine-cone,  the  wheat-ear,  the  egg,  the  wings  and 
forms  of  most  birds,  the  lion's  claw,  the  ser 
pent,  the  butterfly,  sea  -  shells,  flames,  clouds, 
buds,  leaves,  and  the  forms  of  many  trees,  as  the 
palm. 

For  better  consideration,  we  may  distribute 
the  aspects  of  Beauty  in  a  threefold  manner. 

i.  First,  the  simple  perception  of  natural 
forms  is  a  delight.  The  influence  of  the  forms 
and  actions  in  nature  is  so  needful  to  man,  that, 
in  its  lowest  functions,  it  seems  to  lie  on  the 
confines  of  commodity  and  beauty.  To  the 
body  and  mind  which  have  been  cramped  by 
noxious  work  or  company,  nature  is  medicinal 
and  restores  their  tone.  The  tradesman,  the 
attorney  comes  out  of  the  din  and  craft  of  the 
street  and  sees  the  sky  and  the  woods,  and  is  a 
man  again.  In  their  eternal  calm,  he  finds  him 
self.  The  health  of  the  eye  seems  to  demand  a 
horizon.  We  are  never  tired,  so  long  as  we  can 
see  far  enough. 

But  in   other  hours,  Nature  satisfies  by  its 


BEAUTY  17 

loveliness,  and  without  any  mixture  of  corporeal 
benefit.  I  see  the  spectacle  of  morning  from  the 
hilltop  over  against  my  house,  from  daybreak 
to  sunrise,  with  emotions  which  an  angel  might 
share.  The  long  slender  bars  of  cloud  float  like 
fishes  in  the  sea  of  crimson  light.  From  the 
earth,  as  a  shore,  I  look  out  into  that  silent  sea. 
I  seem  to  partake  its  rapid  transformations ;  the 
active  enchantment  reaches  my  dust,  and  I  di 
late  and  conspire  with  the  morning  wind.1  How 
does  Nature  deify  us  with  a  few  and  cheap  ele 
ments  !  Give  me  health  and  a  day,  and  I  will 
make  the  pomp  of  emperors  ridiculous.  The 
dawn  is  my  Assyria;  the  sunset  and  moonrise 
my  Paphos,  and  unimaginable  realms  of  faerie; 
broad  noon  shall  be  my  England  of  the  senses 
and  the  understanding ;  the  night  shall  be  my 
Germany  of  mystic  philosophy  and  dreams. 

Not  less  excellent,  except  for  our  less  sus 
ceptibility  in  the  afternoon,  was  the  charm, 
last  evening,  of  a  January  sunset.  The  western 
clouds  divided  and  subdivided  themselves  into 
pink  flakes  modulated  with  tints  of  unspeakable 
softness,  and  the  air  had  so  much  life  and  sweet 
ness  that  it  was  a  pain  to  come  within  doors. 
What  was  it  that  nature  would  say  ?  Was  there 
no  meaning  in  the  live  repose  of  the  valley  be- 


i8  NATURE 

hind  the  mill,  and  which  Homer  or  Shakspeare 
could  not  re-form  for  me  in  words  ?  The  leaf 
less  trees  become  spires  of  flame  in  the  sunset, 
with  the  blue  east  for  their  background,  and  the 
stars  of  the  dead  calices  of  flowers,  and  every 
withered  stem  and  stubble  rimed  with  frost, 
contribute  something  to  the  mute  music. 

The  inhabitants  of  cities  suppose  that  the 
country  landscape  is  pleasant  only  half  the  year. 
I  please  myself  with  the  graces  of  the  winter 
scenery,  and  believe  that  we  are  as  much  touched 
by  it  as  by  the  genial  influences  of  summer.  To 
the  attentive  eye,  each  moment  of  the  year  has 
its  own  beauty,  and  in  the  same  field,  it  beholds, 
every  hour,  a  picture  which  was  never  seen  be 
fore,  and  which  shall  never  be  seen  again.  The 
heavens  change  every  moment,  and  reflect  their 
glory  or  gloom  on  the  plains  beneath.  The 
state  of  the  crop  in  the  surrounding  farms  alters 
the  expression  of  the  earth  from  week  to  week. 
The  succession  of  native  plants  in  the  pastures 
and  roadsides,  which  makes  the  silent  clock  by 
which  time  tells  the  summer  hours,  will  make 
even  the  divisions  of  the  day  sensible  to  a  keen 
observer.1  The  tribes  of  birds  and  insects,  like 
the  plants  punctual  to  their  time,  follow  each 
other,  and  the  year  has  room  for  all.  By  water- 


BEAUTY  19 

courses,  the  variety  is  greater.  In  July,  the  blue 
pontederia  or  pickerel-weed  blooms  in  large 
beds  in  the  shallow  parts  of  our  pleasant  river, 
and  swarms  with  yellow  butterflies  in  continual 
motion.  Art  cannot  rival  this  pomp  of  purple 
and  gold.  Indeed  the  river  is  a  perpetual  gala, 
and  boasts  each  month  a  new  ornament. 

But  this  beauty  of  Nature  which  is  seen  and 
felt  as  beauty,  is  the  least  part.  The  shows  of  day, 
the  dewy  morning,  the  rainbow,  mountains,  or 
chards  in  blossom,  stars,  moonlight,  shadows  in 
still  water,  and  the  like,  if  too  eagerly  hunted, 
become  shows  merely,  and  mock  us  with  their 
unreality.  Go  out  of  the  house  to  see  the  moon, 
and  'tis  mere  tinsel ;  it  will  not  please  as  when  its 
light  shines  upon  your  necessary  journey.  The 
beauty  that  shimmers  in  the  yellow  afternoons 
of  October,  who  ever  could  clutch  it  ?  Go  forth 
to  find  it,  and  it  is  gone  ;  't  is  only  a  mirage  as 
you  look  from  the  windows  of  diligence. 

2.  The  presence  of  a  higher,  namely,  of  the 
spiritual  element  is  essential  to  its  perfection. 
The  high  and  divine  beauty  which  can  be  loved 
without  effeminacy,  is  that  which  is  found  in 
combination  with  the  human  will.  Beauty  is 
the  mark  God  sets  upon  virtue.  Every  natural 
action  is  graceful.  Every  heroic  act  is  also  de- 


20  NATURE 

cent,  and  causes  the  place  and  the  bystanders 
to  shine.  We  are  taught  by  great  actions  that 
the  universe  is  the  property  of  every  individual 
in  it.  Every  rational  creature  has  all  nature  for 
his  dowry  and  estate.  It  is  his,  if  he  will.  He 
may  divest  himself  of  it ;  he  may  creep  into 
a  corner,  and  abdicate  his  kingdom,  as  most 
/  men  do,  but  he  is  entitled  to  the  world  by  his 
v  constitution.  In  proportion  to  the  energy  of 
his  thought  and  will,  he  takes  up  the  world 
into  himself.  "  All  those  things  for  which  men 
plough,  build,  or  sail,  obey  virtue  ;  "  said  Sal- 
lust.  "  The  winds  and  waves,"  said  Gibbon, 
"  are  always  on  the  side  of  the  ablest  naviga 
tors.  "  x  So  are  the  sun  and  moon  and  all  the 
stars  of  heaven.  When  a  noble  act  is  done, — 
perchance  in  a  scene  of  great  natural  beauty ; 
when  Leonidas  and  his  three  hundred  mar 
tyrs  consume  one  day  in  dying,  and  the  sun 
and  moon  come  each  and  look  at  them  once  in 
the  steep  defile  of  Thermopylae  ;  when  Arnold 
Winkelried,  in  the  high  Alps,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  avalanche,  gathers  in  his  side  a  sheaf  of 
Austrian  spears  to  break  the  line  for  his  com 
rades  ;  are  not  these  heroes  entitled  to  add  the 
beauty  of  the  scene  to  the  beauty  of  the  deed  ? 
When  the  bark  of  Columbus  nears  the  shore 


BEAUTY  21 

of  America  ;  —  before  it  the  beach  lined  with 
savages,  fleeing  out  of  all  their  huts  of  cane  ; 
the  sea  behind  ;  and  the  purple  mountains  of 
the  Indian  Archipelago  around,  can  we  separate 
the  man  from  the  living  picture  ?  Does  not  the 
New  World  clothe  his  form  with  her  palm- 
groves  and  savannahs  as  fit  drapery  ?  Ever  does 
natural  beauty  steal  in  like  air,  and  envelope 
great  actions.  When  Sir  Harry  Vane  was  dragged 
up  the  Tower-hill,  sitting  on  a  sled,  to  suffer 
death  as  the  champion  of  the  English  laws,  one 
of  the  multitude  cried  out  to  him,  "  You  never 
sate  on  so  glorious  a  seat!"  Charles  II.,  to 
intimidate  the  citizens  of  London,  caused  the 
patriot  Lord  Russell  to  be  drawn  in  an  open 
coach  through  the  principal  streets  of  the  city 
on  his  way  to  the  scaffold.  "  But,"  his  biographer 
says,  "  the  multitude  imagined  they  saw  liberty 
and  virtue  sitting  by  his  side."  In  private  places, 
among  sordid  objects,  an  act  of  truth  or  heroism 
seems  at  once  to  draw  to  itself  the  sky  as  its 
temple,  the  sun  as  its  candle.  Nature  stretches 
out  her  arms  to  embrace  man,  only  let  his 
thoughts  be  of  equal  greatness.  Willingly  does 
she  follow  his  steps  with  the  rose  and  the  violet, 
and  bend  her  lines  of  grandeur  and  grace  to  the 
decoration  of  her  darling  child.  Only  let  his 


22  NATURE 

thoughts  be  of  equal  scope,  and  the  frame  will 
suit  the  picture.  A  virtuous  man  is  in  unison 
\/with  ..her  works,  and  makes  the  central  figure 
of  the  visible  sphere.  Homer,  Pindar,  Socrates, 
Phocion,  associate  themselves  fitly  in  our  mem 
ory  with  the  geography  and  climate  of  Greece. 
The  visible  heavens  and  earth  sympathize  with 
Jesus.  And  in  common  life  whosoever  has  seen 
a  person  of  powerful  character  and  happy  genius, 
will  have  remarked  how  easily  he  took  all  things 
along  with  him,  —  the  persons,  the  opinions,  and 
the  day,  and  nature  became  ancillary  to  a  man. 
3.  There  is  still  another  aspect  under  which 
the  beauty  of  the  world  may  be  viewed,  namely, 
as  it  becomes  an  object  of  the  intellect.  Beside 
the  relation  of  things  to  virtue,  they  have  a  re 
lation  to  thought.  The  intellect  searches  out 
the  absolute  order  of  things  as  they  stand  in 
the  mind  of  God,  and  without  the  colors  of 
affection.  The  intellectual  and  the  active  pow 
ers  seem  to  succeed  each  other,  and  the  exclu 
sive  activity  of  the  one  generates  the  exclusive 
activity  of  the  other.  There  is  something  un 
friendly  in  each  to  the  other,  but  they  are  like 
the  alternate  periods  of  feeding  and  working  in 
animals ;  each  prepares  and  will  be  followed  by 
the  other.  Therefore  does  beauty,  which,  in 


BEAUTY  23 

relation  to  actions,  as  we  have  seen,  comes  un 
sought,  and  comes  because  it  is  unsought,  re 
main  for  the  apprehension  and  pursuit  of  the 
intellect ;  and  then  again,  in  its  turn,  of  the 
active  power.  Nothing  divine  dies.  All  good 
is  eternally  reproductive.  The  beauty  of  nature 
re-forms  itself  in  the  mind,  and  not  for  barren 
contemplation,  but  for  new  creation. 

All  men  are  in  some  degree  impressed  by  the 
face  of  the  world  ;  some  men  even  to  delight. 
This  love  of  beauty  is  Taste.  Others  have  the 
same  love  in  such  excess,  that,  not  content  with 
admiring,  they  seek  to  embody  it  in  new  forms. 
The  creation  of  beauty  is  Art. 

The  production  of  a  work  of  art  throws  a 
light  upon  the  mystery  of  humanity.  A  work 
of  art  is  an  abstract  or  epitome  of  the  world.  It 
is  the  result  or  expression  of  nature,  in  minia 
ture.  For  although  the  works  of  nature  are  in 
numerable  and  all  different,  the  result  or  the 
expression  of  them  all  is  similar  and  single.  Na 
ture  is  a  sea  of  forms  radically  alike  and  even 
unique.  A  leaf,  a  sunbeam,  a  landscape,  the 
ocean,  make  an  analogous  impression  on  the 
mind.  What  is  common  to  them  all,  —  that  per- 
fectness  and  harmony,  is  beauty.1  The  standard 
of  beauty  is  the  entire  circuit  of  natural  forms, 


24  NATURE 

—  the  totality  of  nature  ;  which  the  Italians  ex 
pressed  by  defining  beauty  "  il  piu  nell'  uno." 
Nothing  is  quite  beautiful  alone  ;  nothing  but 
is  beautiful  in  the  whole.  A  single  object  is  only 
so  far  beautiful  as  it  suggests  this  universal 
grace.1  The  poet,  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the 
musician,  the  architect,  seek  each  to  concentrate 
this  radiance  of  the  world  on  one  point,  and  each 
in  his  several  work  to  satisfy  the  love  of  beauty 
which  stimulates  him  to  produce.  Thus  is  Art  a 
nature  passed  through  the  alembic  of  man.  Thus 
in  art  does  Nature  work  through  the  will  of  a 
man  filled  with  the  beauty  of  her  first  works. 

The  world  thus  exists  to  the  soul  to  satisfy 
the  desire  of  beauty.  This  element  I  call  an 
ultimate  end.  No  reason  can  be  asked  or  given 
why  the  soul  seeks  beauty.2  Beauty,  in  its 
largest  and  profoundest  sense,  is  one  expression 
for  the  universe.  God  is  the  all-fair.  Truth, 
and  goodness,  and  beauty,  are  but  different 
faces  of  the  same  All.  But  beauty  in  nature  is 
not  ultimate.  It  is  the  herald  of  inward  and 
eternal  beauty,  and  is  not  alone  a  solid  and  sat 
isfactory  good.  It  must  stand  as  a  part,  and  not 
as  yet  the  last  or  highest  expression  of  the  final 
cause  of  Nature.3 


IV 
LANGUAGE 

LANGUAGE  is  a  third  use  which  Nature 
subserves  to  man.    Nature  is  the  vehicle 
of  thought,  and  in  a  simple,  double,  and  three 
fold  degree. 

i .  Words  are  signs  of  natural  facts. 

i.  Particular  natural  facts  are  symbols  of  par 
ticular  spiritual  facts. 

3.   Nature  is  the  symbol  of  spirit. 

i.  Words  are  signs  of  natural  facts.  The^ 
use  of  natural  history  is  to  give  us  aid  in  super 
natural  history  ;  the  use  of  the  outer  creation,  I 
to  give  us  language  for  the  beings  and  changes 
of  the  inward  creation.  Every  word  which  is 
used  to  express  a  moral  or  intellectual  fact,  if 
traced  to  its  root,  is  found  to  be  borrowed  from 
some  material  appearance.  Right  means  straight ; 
wrong  means  twisted.  Spirit  primarily  means 
wind ;  transgression,  the  crossing  of  a  line;  su 
percilious,  the  raising  of  the  eyebrow.  We  say 
the  heart  to  express  emotion,  the  head  to  denote 
thought ;  and  thought  and  emotion  are  words 
borrowed  from  sensible  things,  and  now  appro- 


26  NATURE 

priated  to  spiritual  nature.  Most  of  the  pro 
cess  by  which  this  transformation  is  made,  is 
hidden  from  us  in  the  remote  time  when  lan 
guage  was  framed  ;  but  the  same  tendency  may 
be  daily  observed  in  children.  Children  and 
savages  use  only  nouns  or  names  of  things, 
which  they  convert  into  verbs,  and  apply  to 
analogous  mental  acts. 

2.  But  this  origin  of  all  words  that  convey  a 
spiritual  import,  —  so  conspicuous  a  fact  in  the 
history  of  language,  —  is  our  least  debt  to  nature. 
It  is  not  words  only  that  are  emblematic  ;  it  is 
things  which  are  emblematic.  Every  natural  fact 
is  a  symbol  of  some  spiritual  fact.  Every  ap 
pearance  in  nature  corresponds  to  some  state 
of  the  mind,  and  that  state  of  the  mind  can  only 
be  described  by  presenting  that  natural  appear 
ance  as  its  picture.  An  enraged  man  is  a  lion, 
a  cunning  man  is  a  fox,  a  firm  man  is  a  rock,  a 
learned  man  is  a  torch.  A  lamb  is  innocence  ; 
a  snake  is  subtle  spite ;  flowers  express  to  us 
the  delicate  affections.  Light  and  darkness  are 
our  familiar  expression  for  knowledge  and  ig 
norance  ;  and  heat  for  love.  Visible  distance 
behind  and  before  us,  is  respectively  our  image 
of  memory  and  hope. 

Who  looks  upon  a  river  in  a  meditative  hour 


LANGUAGE  27 

and  is  not  reminded  of  the  flux  of  all  things  ? 
Throw  a  stone  into  the  stream,  and  -the  circles 
that  propagate  themselves  are  the  beautiful  type 
of  all  influence.1  Man  is  conscious  of  a  uni 
versal  soul  within  or  behind  his  individual  life, 
wherein,  as  in  a  firmament,  the  natures  of  Jus 
tice,  Truth,  Love,  Freedom,  arise  and  shine. 
This  universal  soul  he  calls  Reason  :  it  is  not 
mine,  or  thine,  or  his,  but  we  are  its  ;  we  are 
its  property  and  men.  And  the  blue  sky  in" 
which  the  private  earth  is  buried,  the  sky  with  \ 
its  eternal  calm,  and  full  of  everlasting  orbs,  is  ) 
the  type  of  Reason.  That  which  intellectually 
considered  we  call  Reason,  considered  in  relation 
to  nature,  we  call  Spirit.  Spirit  is  the  Creator. 
>pirit  hath  life  in  itself.  And  man  in  all  ages 

•and  countries  embodies  it  in  his  language  as  the 
|\Ji 

LEATHER. 

It  is  easily  seen  that  there  is  nothing  lucky 
or  capricious  in  these  analogies,  but  that  they 
are  constant,  and  pervade  nature.  These  are 
not  the  dreams  of  a  few  poets,  here  and  there, 
but  man  is  an  analogist,  and  studies  relations  in 
all  objects.  He  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  beings, 
and  a  ray  of  relation  passes  from  every  other 
being  to  him.  And  neither  can  man  be  under 
stood  without  these  objects,  nor  these  objects 


28  NATURE 

without  man.  All  the  facts  in  natural  history 
taken  by 'themselves,  have  no  value,  but  are 
barren,  like  a  single  sex.  But  marry  it  to  human 
history,  and  it  is  full  of  life.  Whole  floras,  all 
Linnaeus*  and  Buffon's  volumes,  are  dry  cata 
logues  of  facts  ;  but  the  most  trivial  of  these 
facts,  the  habit  of  a  plant,  the  organs,  or  work, 
or  noise  of  an  insect,  applied  to  the  illustration 
of  a  fact  in  intellectual  philosophy,  or  in  any 
way  associated  to  human  nature,  affects  us  in 
the  most  lively  and  agreeable  manner.  The 
seed  of  a  plant,  —  to  what  affecting  analogies 
in  the  nature  of  man  is  that  little  fruit  made 
use  of,  in  all  discourse,  up  to  the  voice  of  Paul, 
who  calls  the  human  corpse  a  seed,  —  "It  is 
sown  a  natural  body ;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual 
body."  The  motion  of  the  earth  round  its  axis 
and  round  the  sun,  makes  the  day  and  the  year. 
These  are  certain  amounts  of  brute  light  and 
heat.  But  is  there  no  intent  of  an  analogy  be 
tween  man's  life  and  the  seasons?  And  do  the 
seasons  gain  no  grandeur  or  pathos  from  that 
analogy  ?  The  instincts  of  the  ant  are  very 
unimportant  considered  as  the  ant's ;  but  the 
moment  a  ray  of  relation  is  seen  to  extend  from 
it  to  man,  and  the  little  drudge  is  seen  to  be  a 
monitor,  a  little  body  with  a  mighty  heart,  then 


LANGUAGE  29 

all  its  habits,  even  that  said  to  be  recently  ob 
served,  that  it  never  sleeps,  become  sublime. 

Because  of  this  radical  correspondence  between 
visible  things  and  human  thoughts,  savages, 
who  have  only  what  is  necessary,  converse  in 
figures.  As  we  go  back  in  history,  language 
becomes  more  picturesque,  until  its  infancy, 
when  it  is  all  poetry  ;  or  all  spiritual  facts  are 
represented  by  natural  symbols.  The  same  sym 
bols  are  found  to  make  the  original  elements  of 
all  languages.  It  has  moreover  been  observed, 
that  the  idioms  of  all  languages  approach  each 
other  in  passages  of  the  greatest  eloquence  and 
power.  And  as  this  is  the  first  language,  so  is 
it  the  last.  This  immediate  dependence  of  lan 
guage  upon  nature,  this  conversion  of  an  out 
ward  phenomenon  into  a  type  of  somewhat  in 
human  life,  never  loses  its  power  to  affect  us. 
It  is  this  which  gives  that  piquancy  to  the  con 
versation  of  a  strong-natured  farmer  or  back 
woodsman,  which  all  men  relish. 

A  man's  power  to  connect  his  thought  with 
its  proper  symbol,  and  so  to  utter  it,  depends 
on  the  simplicity  of  his  character,  that  is,  upon 
his  love  of  truth  and  his  desire  to  communicate 
it  without  loss.  The  corruption  of  man  is  fol 
lowed  by  the  corruption  of  language.  When 


30  NATURE 

simplicity  of  character  and  the  sovereignty  of 
ideas  is  broken  up  by  the  prevalence  of  second 
ary  desires, —  the  desire  of  riches,  of  pleasure, 
of  power,  and  of  praise,  —  and  duplicity  and 
falsehood  take  place  of  simplicity  and  truth,  the 
power  over  nature  as  an  interpreter  of  the  will 
is  in  a  degree  lost ;  new  imagery  ceases  to  be 
created,  and  old  words  are  perverted  to  stand  for 
things  which  are  not ;  a  paper  currency  is  em 
ployed,  when  there  is  no  bullion  in  the  vaults. 
In  due  time  the  fraud  is  manifest,  and  words 
lose  all  power  to  stimulate  the  understanding 
or  the  affections.  Hundreds  of  writers  may  be 
found  in  every  long-civilized  nation  who  for  a 
short  time  believe  and  make  others  believe  that 
they  see  and  utter  truths,  who  do  not  of  them 
selves  clothe  one  thought  in  its  natural  garment, 
but  who  feed  unconsciously  on  the  language  cre 
ated  by  the  primary  writers  of  the  country,  those, 
namely,  who  hold  primarily  on  nature.1 

But  wise  men  pierce  this  rotten  diction  and 
fasten  words  again  to  visible  things  ;  so  that  pic 
turesque  language  is  at  once  a  commanding  cer 
tificate  that  he  who  employs  it  is  a  man  in  alliance 
with  truth  and  God.  The  moment  our  discourse 
rises  above  the  ground  line  of  familiar  facts  and 
is  inflamed  with  passion  or  exalted  by  thought, 


LANGUAGE  31 

it  clothes  itself  in  images.  A  man  conversing  in 
earnest,  if  he  watch  his  intellectual  processes,  will 
find  that  a  material  image  more  or  less  luminous 
arises  in  his  mind,  contemporaneous  with  every 
thought,  which  furnishes  the  vestment  of  the 
thought.  Hence,  good  writing  and  brilliant  dis 
course  are  perpetual  allegories.  This  imagery  is 
spontaneous.  It  is  the  blending  of  experience 
with  the  present  action  of  the  mind.  It  is  proper 
creation.  It  is  the  working  of  the  Original  Cause 
through  the  instruments  he  has  already  made. 

These  facts  may  suggest  the  advantage  which 
the  country-life  possesses,  for  a  powerful  mind, 
over  the  artificial  and  curtailed  life  of  cities.  We 
know  more  from  nature  than  we  can  at  will  com 
municate.  Its  light  flows  into  the  mind  evermore, 
and  we  forget  its  presence.  The  poet,  the  orator, 
bred  in  the  woods,  whose  senses  have  been  nour 
ished  by  their  fair  and  appeasing  changes,  year 
after  year,  without  design  and  without  heed,  — 
shall  not  lose  their  lesson  altogether,  in  the  roar 
of  cities  or  the  broil  of  politics.  Long  hereafter, 
amidst  agitation  and  terror  in  national  councils, 
—  in  the  hour  of  revolution,  —  these  solemn 
images  shall  reappear  in  their  morning  lustre, 
as  fit  symbols  and  words  of  the  thoughts  which 
the  passing  events  shall  awaken.  At  the  call  of  a 


32  NATURE 

noble  sentiment,  again  the  woods  wave,  the  pines 
murmur,  the  river  rolls  and  shines,  and  the  cattle 
low  upon  the  mountains,  as  he  saw  and  heard 
them  in  his  infancy.  And  with  these  forms,  the 
spells  of  persuasion,  the  keys  of  power  are  put 
into  his  hands. 

3.  We  are  thus  assisted  by  natural  objects  in 
the  expression  of  particular  meanings.  But  how 
great  a  language  to  convey  such  pepper-corn  in 
formations  !  Did  it  need  such  noble  races  of  crea 
tures,  this  profusion  of  forms,  this  host  of  orbs 
in  heaven,  to  furnish  man  with  the  dictionary 
and  grammar  of  his  municipal  speech  ?  Whilst 
we  use  this  grand  cipher  to  expedite  the  affairs 
of  our  pot  and  kettle,  we  feel  that  we  have  not 
yet  put  it  to  its  use,  neither  are  able.  We  are 
like  travellers  using  the  cinders  of  a  volcano  to 
roast  their  eggs.  Whilst  we  see  that  it  always 
stands  ready  to  clothe  what  we  would  say,  we 
cannot  avoid  the  question  whether  the  characters 
are  not  significant  of  themselves.  Have  moun 
tains,  and  waves,  and  skies,  no  significance  but 
what  we  consciously  give  them  when  we  employ 
them  as  emblems  of  our  thoughts  ? '  [The  world 
is  emblematic.  Parts  of  speech  are  metaphors, 
because  the  whole  of  nature  is  a  metaphor  of 
the  human  mindukThe  laws  of  moral  nature  an- 


LANGUAGE  33 

swer  to  those  of  matter  as  face  to  face  in  a  glassj 
"The  visible  world  and  the  relation  of  its  parts, 
is  the  dial  plate  of  the  invisible."  The  axioms  of 
physics  translate  the  laws  of  ethics.  Thus,  "  the 
whole  is  greater  than  its  part ;  "  "  reaction  is  equal 
to  action ;  "  "the  smallest  weight  may  be  made 
to  lift  the  greatest,  the  difference  of  weight  being 
compensated  by  time;"  and  many  the  like  pro 
positions,  which  have  an  ethical  as  well  as  physi 
cal  sense.  These  propositions  have  a  much  more 
extensive  and  universal  sense  when  applied  to 
human  life,  than  when  confined  to  technical  use. 

In  like  manner,  the  memorable  words  of  his 
tory  and  the  proverbs  of  nations  consist  usually 
of  a  natural  fact,  selected  as  a  picture  or  parable 
of  a  moral  truth.  Thus  ;  A  rolling  stone  gathers 
no  moss  ;  A  bird  in  the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the 
bush  ;  A  cripple  in  the  right  way  will  beat  a  racer 
in  the  wrong ;  Make  hay  while  the  sun  shines  ; 
'T  is  hard  to  carry  a  full  cup  even  ;  Vinegar  is 
the  son  of  wine ;  The  last  ounce  broke  the  camel's 
back  ;  Long-lived  trees  make  roots  first ;  —  and 
the  like.  In  their  primary  sense  these  are  trivial 
facts,  but  we  repeat  them  for  the  value  of  their 
analogical  import.  What  is  true  of  proverbs,  is 
true  of  all  fables,  parables,  and  allegories. 

This  relation  between  the  mind  and  matter  is 


34  NATURE 

not  fancied  by  some  poet,  but  stands  in  the  will 
of  God,  and  so  is  free  to  be  known  by  all  men. 
It  appears  to  men,  or  it  does  not  appear.  When 
in  fortunate  hours  we  ponder  this  miracle,  the 
wise  man  doubts  if  at  all  other  times  he  is  not 
blind  and  deaf; 

"  Can  such  things  be, 
And  overcome  us  like  a  summer's  cloud, 
Without  our  special  wonder  ?  "  I 

for  the  universe  becomes  transparent,  and  the 
light  of  higher  laws  than  its  own  shines  through 
it.  It  is  the  standing  problem  which  has  exer 
cised  the  wonder  and  the  study  of  every  fine 
genius  since  the  world  began ;  from  the  era 
of  the  Egyptians  and  the  Brahmins  to  that  of 
Pythagoras,  of  Plato,  of  Bacon,  of  Leibnitz, 
of  Swedenborg.  There  sits  the  Sphinx  at  the 
road-side,  and  from  age  to  age,  as  each  prophet 
comes  by,  he  tries  his  fortune  at  reading  her  rid 
dle.  There  seems  to  be  a  necessity  in  spirit  to 
manifest  itself  in  material  forms ;  and  day  and 
night,  river  and  storm,  beast  and  bird,  acid  and 
alkali,  preexist  in  necessary  Ideas  in  the  mind 
of  God,  and  are  what  they  are  by  virtue  of  pre 
ceding  affections  in  the  world  of  spirit.  A  Fact 
is  the  end  or  last  issue  of  spirit.  The  visible 
creation  is  the  terminus  or  the  circumference  of 


LANGUAGE  35 

the  invisible  world.  "  Material  objects,"  said  a 
French  philosopher,  "  are  necessarily  kinds  of 
scoriae  of  the  substantial  thoughts  of  the  Creator, 
which  must  always  preserve  an  exact  relation  to 
their  first  origin ;  in  other  words,  visible  nature 
must  have  a  spiritual  and  moral  side." 

This  doctrine  is  abstruse,  and  though  the  im 
ages  of  "  garment,"  "  scoriae,"  "  mirror,"  etc., 
may  stimulate  the  fancy,  we  must  summon  the 
aid  of  subtler  and  more  vital  expositors  to  make 
it  plain.  "  Every  scripture  is  to  be  interpreted 
by  the  same  spirit  which  gave  it  forth,"  —  is  the 
fundamental  law  of  criticism.  A  life  in  harmony 
with  Nature,  the  love  of  truth  and  of  virtue,  will 
purge  the  eyes  to  understand  her  text.  By  de 
grees  we  may  come  to  know  the  primitive  sense 
of  the  permanent  objects  of  nature,  so  that  the 
world  shall  be  to  us  an  open  book,  and  every 
form  significant  of  its  hidden  life  and  final  cause. 

A  new  interest  surprises  us,  whilst,  under  the 
view  now  suggested,  we  contemplate  the  fearful 
extent  and  multitude  of  objects  ;  since  "  every 
object  rightly  seen,  unlocks  a  new  faculty  of  the 
soul."  That  which  was  unconscious  truth,  be 
comes,  when  interpreted  and  defined  in  an  ob 
ject,  a  part  of  the  domain  of  knowledge,  —  a 
new  weapon  in  the  magazine  of  power. 


DISCIPLINE 

IN  view  of  the  significance  of  nature,  we  ar 
rive  at  once  at  a  new  fact,  that  nature  is  a 
discipline.  This  use  of  the  world  includes  the 
preceding  uses,  as  parts  of  itself. 

Space,  time,  society,  labor,  climate,  food,  loco 
motion,  the  animals,  the  mechanical  forces,  give 
us  sincerest  lessons,  day  by  day,  whose  meaning 
is  unlimited.  They  educate  both  the  Under 
standing  and  the  Reason.  Every  property  of 
matter  is  a  school  for  the  understanding,  —  its 
solidity  or  resistance,  its  inertia,  its  extension,  its 
figure,  its  divisibility.  The  understanding  adds, 
divides,  combines,  measures,  and  finds  nutriment 
and  room  for  its  activity  in  this  worthy  scene. 
Meantime,  Reason  transfers  all  these  lessons 
into  its  own  world  of  thought,  by  perceiving  the 
analogy  that  marries  Matter  and  Mind. 

i.  Nature  is  a  discipline  of  the  understanding 
in  intellectual  truths.  Our  dealing  with  sensible 
objects  is  a  constant  exercise  in  the  necessary 
lessons  of  difference,  of  likeness,  of  order,  of 
being  and  seeming,  of  progressive  arrangement; 


DISCIPLINE  37 

of  ascent  from  particular  to  general ;  of  combi 
nation  to  one  end  of  manifold  forces.  Propor 
tioned  to  the  importance  of  the  organ  to  be 
formed,  is  the  extreme  care  with  which  its  tuition 
is  provided,  —  a  care  pretermitted  in  no  single 
case.  What  tedious  training,  day  after  day,  year 
after  year,  never  ending,  to  form  the  common 
sense;  what  continual  reproduction  of  annoy 
ances,  inconveniences,  dilemmas  ;  what  rejoicing 
over  us  of  little  men  ;  what  disputing  of  prices, 
what  reckonings  of  interest,  —  and  all  to  form 
the  Hand  of  the  mind  ;  —  to  instruct  us  that 
"  good  thoughts  are  no  better  than  good  dreams, 
unless  they  be  executed  !  " 

The  same  good  office  is  performed  by  Pro 
perty  and  its  filial  systems  of  debt  and  credit. 
Debt,  grinding  debt,  whose  iron  face  the  widow, 
the  orphan,  and  the  sons  of  genius  fear  and 
hate;  —  debt,  which  consumes  so  much  time, 
which  so  cripples  and  disheartens  a  great  spirit 
with  cares  that  seem  so  base,  is  a  preceptor 
whose  lessons  cannot  be  foregone,  and  is  needed 
most  by  those  who  suffer  from  it  most.  More 
over,  property,  which  has  been  well  compared 
to  snow,  —  "if  it  fall  level  to-day,  it  will  be 
blown  into  drifts  to-morrow,"  —  is  the  surface 
action  of  internal  machinery,  like  the  index  en 


38  NATURE 

the  face  of  a  clock.  Whilst  now  it  is  the  gym 
nastics  of  the  understanding,  it  is  hiving,  in  the 
foresight  of  the  spirit,  experience  in  profounder 
laws. 

The  whole  character  and  fortune  of  the  indi 
vidual  are  affected  by  the  least  inequalities  in 
the  culture  of  the  understanding  ;  for  example, 
in  the  perception  of  differences.  Therefore  is 
Space,  and  therefore  Time,  that  man  may  know 
that  things  are  not  huddled  and  lumped,  but 
sundered  and  individual.  A  bell  and  a  plough 
have  each  their  use,  and  neither  can  do  the  office 
of  the  other.  Water  is  good  to  drink,  coal  to 
burn,  wool  to  wear ;  but  wool  cannot  be  drunk, 
nor  water  spun,  nor  coal  eaten.  The  wise  man 
shows  his  wisdom  in  separation,  in  gradation, 
and  his  scale  of  creatures  and  of  merits  is  as  wide 
as  nature.  The  foolish  have  no  range  in  their 
scale,  but  suppose  every  man  is  as  every  other 
man.  What  is  not  good  they  call  the  worst,  and 
what  is  not  hateful,  they  call  the  best. 

In  like  manner,  what  good  heed  Nature  forms 
in  us  !  She  pardons  no  mistakes.  Her  yea  is 
yea,  and  her  nay,  nay. 

The  first  steps  in  Agriculture,  Astronomy, 
Zoology  (those  first  steps  which  the  farmer, 
the  hunter,  and  the  sailor  take),  teach  that  Na- 


DISCIPLINE  39 

ture's  dice  are  always  loaded ; I  that  in  her  heaps 
and  rubbish  are  concealed  sure  and  useful  re 
sults. 

How  calmly  and  genially  the  mind  appre 
hends  one  after  another  the  laws  of  physics  ! 
What  noble  emotions  dilate  the  mortal  as  he 
enters  into  the  councils  of  the  creation,  and  feels 
by  knowledge  the  privilege  to  BE  !  His  insight 
refines  him.  The  beauty  of  nature  shines  in  his 
own-  breast.  Man  is  greater  that  he  can  see  this, 
and  the  universe  less,  because  Time  and  Space 
relations  vanish  as  laws  are  known. 

Here  again  we  are  impressed  and  even  daunted 
by  the  immense  Universe  to  be  explored.  "What 
we  know  is  a  point  to  what  we  do  not  know." 
Open  any  recent  journal  of  science,  and  weigh 
the  problems  suggested  concerning  Light,  Heat, 
Electricity,  Magnetism,  Physiology,  Geology, 
and  judge  whether  the  interest  of  natural  science 
is  likely  to  be  soon  exhausted. 

Passing  by  many  particulars  of  the  discipline 
of  nature,  we  must  not  omit  to  specify  two. 

The  exercise  of  the  Will,  or  the  lesson  of 
power,  is  taught  in  every  event.  From  the  child's 
successive  possession  of  his  several  senses  up  to 
the  hour  when  he  saith,  "  Thy  will  be  done  !  " 
he  is  learning  the  secret  that  he  can  reduce  under 


40  NATURE 

his  will  not  only  particular  events  but  great 
classes,  nay,  the  whole  series  of  events,  and  so 
conform  all  facts  to.  his  character.  Nature  is 
thoroughly  mediate.  It  is  made  to  serve.  It 
receives  the  dominion  of  man  as  meekly  as  the 
ass  on  which  the  Saviour  rode.  It  offers  all  its 
kingdoms  to  man  as  the  raw  material  which  he 
may  mould  into  what  is  useful.  Man  is  never 
weary  of  working  it  up.  He  forges  the  subtile 
and  delicate  air  into  wise  and  melodious  words, 
and  gives  them  wing  as  angels  of  persuasion 
and  command.  One  after  another  his  victorious 
thought  comes  up  with  and  reduces  all  things, 
until  the  world  becomes  at  last  only  a  realized 
will,  —  the  double  of  the  man. 

2.  Sensible  objects  conform  to  the  premoni 
tions  of  Reason  and  reflect  the  conscience.  All 
things  are  moral ;  and  in  their  boundless  changes 
have  an  unceasing  reference  to  spiritual  nature. 
Therefore  is  nature  glorious  with  form,  color, 
and  motion  ;  that  every  globe  in  the  remotest 
heaven,  every  chemical  change  from  the  rudest 
crystal  up  to  the  laws  of  life,  every  change  of 
vegetation  from  the  first  principle  of  growth  in 
the  eye  of  a  leaf,  to  the  tropical  forest  and  ante 
diluvian  coal-mine,  every  animal  function  from 
the  sponge  up  to  Hercules,  shall  hint  or  thun- 


DISCIPLINE  41 

der  to  man  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong,  and 
echo  the  Ten  Commandments.1  Therefore  is 
Nature  ever  the  ally  of  Religion  :  lends  all  her 
pomp  and  riches  to  the  religious  sentiment. 
Prophet  and  priest,  David,  Isaiah,  Jesus,  have 
drawn  deeply  from  this  source.  This  ethical 
character  so  penetrates  the  bone  and  marrow  of 
nature,  as  to  seem  the  end  for  which  it  was  made. 
Whatever  private  purpose  is  answered  by  any 
member  or  part,  this  is  its  public  and  univer 
sal  function,  and  is  never  omitted.  Nothing 
in  nature  is  exhausted  in  its  first  use.  When 
a  thing  has  served  an  end  to  the  uttermost,  it 
is  wholly  new  for  an  ulterior  service.  In  God, 
every  end  is  converted  into  a  new  means.  Thus 
the  use  of  commodity,  regarded  by  itself,  is 
mean  and  squalid.  But  it  is  to  the  mind  an 
education  in  the  doctrine  of  Use,  namely,  that 
a  thing  is  good  only  so  far  as  it  serves ;  that  a 
conspiring  of  parts  and  efforts  to  the  production 
of  an  end  is  essential  to  any  being.  The  first 
and  gross  manifestation  of  this  truth  is  our  inev 
itable  and  hated  training  in  values  and  wants,  in 
corn  and  meat. 

It  has  already  been  illustrated,  that  every  nat 
ural  process  is  a  version  of  a  moral  sentence. 
The  moral  law  lies  at  the  centre  of  nature  and 


42  NATURE 

radiates  to  the  circumference.  It  is  the  pith 
and  marrow  of  every  substance,  every  relation, 
and  every  process.  All  things  with  which  we 
deal,  preach  to  us.  What  is  a  farm  but  a  mute 
gospel  ?  The  chaff  and  the  wheat,  weeds  and 
plants,  blight,  rain,  insects,  sun,  —  it  is  a  sacred 
emblem  from  the  first  furrow  of  spring  to  the 
last  stack  which  the  snow  of  winter  overtakes 
in  the  fields.  But  the  sailor,  the  shepherd,  the 
miner,  the  merchant,  in  their  several  resorts, 
have  each  an  experience  precisely  parallel,  and 
leading  to  the  same  conclusion  :  because  all  or 
ganizations  are  radically  alike.  Nor  can  it  be 
doubted  that  this  moral  sentiment  which  thus 
scents  the  air,  grows  in  the  grain,  and  impreg 
nates  the  waters  of  the  world,  is  caught  by  man 
and  sinks  into  his  soul.1  The  moral  influence 
of  nature  upon  every  individual  is  that  amount 
of  truth  which  it  illustrates  to  him.  Who  can 
estimate  this  ?  Who  can  guess  how  much  firm 
ness  the  sea-beaten  rock  has  taught  the  fisher 
man  ?  how  much  tranquillity  has  been  reflected 
to  man  from  the  azure  sky,  over  whose  unspotted 
deeps  the  winds  forevermore  drive  flocks  of 
stormy  clouds,  and  leave  no  wrinkle  or  stain  ? 2 
how  much  industry  and  providence  and  affec 
tion  we  have  caught  from  the  pantomime  of 


DISCIPLINE  43 

brutes  ?  What  a  searching  preacher  of  self-com 
mand  is  the  varying  phenomenon  of  Health  ! 

Herein  is  especially  apprehended  the  unity  of 
Nature,  —  the  unity  in  variety,  —  which  meets 
us  everywhere.  All  the  endless  variety  of  things 
make  an  identical  impression.  Xenophanes  com 
plained  in  his  old  age,  that,  look  where  he  would, 
all  things  hastened  back  to  Unity.  He  was 
weary  of  seeing  the  same  entity  in  the  tedious 
variety  of  forms.1  The  fable  of  Proteus  has  a 
cordial  truth.  A  leaf,  a  drop,  a  crystal,  a  mo 
ment  of  time,  is  related  to  the  whole,  and  par 
takes  of  the  perfection  of  the  whole.  Each  par 
ticle  is  a  microcosm,  and  faithfully  renders  the 
likeness  of  the  world. 

Not  only  resemblances  exist  in  things  whose 
analogy  is  obvious,  as  when  we  detect  the  type 
of  the  human  hand  in  the  flipper  of  the  fossil 
saurus,2  but  also  in  objects  wherein  there  is 
great  superficial  unlikeness.  Thus  architecture 
is  called  "frozen  music,"  by  De  Stae'l  and  Goethe. 
Vitruvius  thought  an  architect  should  be  a  musi 
cian.  "  A  Gothic  church,"  said  Coleridge,  "  is  a 
petrified  religion."  Michael  Angelo  maintained, 
that,  to  an  architect,  a  knowledge  of  anatomy  is 
essential.  In  Haydn's  oratorios,  the  notes  pre 
sent  to  the  imagination  not  only  motions,  as  of 


44  NATURE 

the  snake,  the  stag,  and  the  elephant,  but  colors 
also  ;  as  the  green  grass.  The  law  of  harmonic 
sounds  reappears  in  the  harmonic  colors.  The 
granite  is  differenced  in  its  laws  only  by  the 
more  or  less  of  heat  from  the  river  that  wears 
it  away.  The  river,  as  it  flows,  resembles  the 
air  that  flows  over  it ;  the  air  resembles  the  light 
which  traverses  it  with  more  subtile  currents; 
the  light  resembles  the  heat  which  rides  with  it 
through  Space.  Each  creature  is  only  a  modi 
fication  of  the  other  ;  the  likeness  in  them  is 
more  than  the  difference,  and  their  radical  law 
is  one  and  the  same.  A  rule  of  one  art,  or  a 
law  of  one  organization,  holds  true  through 
out  nature.  So  intimate  is  this  Unity,  that,  it  is 
easily  seen,  it  lies  under  the  undermost  garment 
of  Nature,  and  betrays  its  source  in  Universal 
Spirit.  For  it  pervades  Thought  also.  Every 
universal  truth  which  we  express  in  words,  im 
plies  or  supposes  every  other  truth.  Omne  verum 
vero  consonat.  It  is  like  a  great  circle  on  a  sphere, 
comprising  all  possible  circles ;  which,  however, 
may  be  drawn  and  comprise  it  in  like  manner. 
Every  such  truth  is  the  absolute  Ens  seen  from 
one  side.  But  it  has  innumerable  sides. 

The  central  Unity  is  still  more  conspicuous 
in  actions.    Words  are  finite  organs  of  the  infi- 


DISCIPLINE  45 

nite  mind.  They  cannot  cover  the  dimensions 
of  what  is  in  truth.  They  break,  chop,  and  im 
poverish  it.  An  action  is  the  perfection  and  pub 
lication  of  thought.  A  right  action  seems  to  fill 
the  eye,  and  to  be  related  to  all  nature.  "  The 
wise  man,  in  doing  one  thing,  does  all ;  or,  in 
the  one  thing  he  does  rightly,  he  sees  the  like 
ness  of  all  which  is  done  rightly." 

Words  and  actions  are  not  the  attributes  of 
brute  nature.  They  introduce  us  to  the  human 
form,  of  which  all  other  organizations  appear  to 
be  degradations.1  When  this  appears  among 
so  many  that  surround  it,  the  spirit  prefers  it  to 
all  others.  It  says,  "From  such  as  this  have 
I  drawn  joy  and  knowledge  ;  in  such  as  this 
have  I  found  and  beheld  myself;  I  will  speak 
to  it ;  it  can  speak  again  ;  it  can  yield  me  thought 
already  formed  and  alive."  In  fact,  the  eye,  — 
the  mind,  —  is  always  accompanied  by  these 
forms,  male  and  female ;  and  these  are  incom 
parably  the  richest  informations  of  the  power 
and  order  that  He  at  the  heart  of  things.  Un 
fortunately  every  one  of  them  bears  the  marks 
as  of  some  injury  ;  is  marred  and  superficially 
defective.  Nevertheless,  far  different  from  the 
deaf  and  dumb  nature  around  them,  these  all 
rest  like  fountain-pipes  on  the  unfathomed  sea 


46  NATURE 

of  thought  and  virtue  whereto  they  alone,  of  all 
organizations,  are  the  entrances.1 

It  were  a  pleasant  inquiry  to  follow  into  de 
tail  their  ministry  to  our  education,  but  where 
would  it  stop  ?  We  are  associated  in  adoles 
cent  and  adult  life  with  some  friends,  who,  like 
skies  and  waters,  are  coextensive  with  our  idea; 
who,  answering  each  to  a  certain  affection  of  the 
soul,  satisfy  our  desire  on  that  side  ;  whom  we 
lack  power  to  put  at  such  focal  distance  from 
us,  that  we  can  mend  or  even  analyze  them.  We 
cannot  choose  but  love  them.  When  much  in 
tercourse  with  a  friend  has  supplied  us  with  a 
standard  of  excellence,  and  has  increased  our 
respect  for  the  resources  of  God  who  thus  sends 
a  real  person  to  outgo  our  ideal  ;  when  he  has, 
moreover,  become  an  object  of  thought,  and, 
whilst  his  character  retains  all  its  unconscious 
effect,  is  converted  in  the  mind  into  solid  and 
sweet  wisdom,  —  it  is  a  sign  to  us  that  his  office 
is  closing,  and  he  is  commonly  withdrawn  from 
our  sight  in  a  short  time.2 


VI 
IDEALISM1 

THUS  is  the  unspeakable  but  intelligible 
and  practicable  meaning  of  the  world  con 
veyed  to  man,  the  immortal  pupil,  in  every  ob 
ject  of  sense.     To  this  one  end  of  Discipline, 
all  parts  of  nature  conspire.   - 

A  noble  doubt  perpetually  suggests  itself,  — 
whether  this  end  be  not  the  Final  Cause  of  the 
Universe  ;  and  whether  nature  outwardly  exists. 
It  is  a  sufficient  account  of  that  Appearance  we 
call  the  World,  that  God  will  teach  a  human 
mind,  and  so  makes  it  the  receiver  of  a  certain 
number  of  congruent  sensations,  which  we  call 
sun  and  moon,  man  and  woman,  house  and  trade. 
In  my  utter  impotence  to  test  the  authenticity 
of  the  report  of  my  senses,  to  know  whether 
the  impressions  they  make  on  me  correspond 
with  outlying  objects,  what  difference  does  it 
make,  whether  Orion  is  up  there  in  heaven,  or 
some  god  paints  the  image  in  the  firmament  of 
the  soul  ?  The  relations  of  parts  and  the  end 
of  the  whole  remaining  the  same,  what  is  the 
difference,  whether  land  and  sea  interact,  and 
worlds  revolve  and  intermingle  without  number 


48  NATURE 

or  end,  —  deep  yawning  under  deep,  and  galaxy 
balancing  galaxy,  throughout  absolute  space, — 
or  whether,  without  relations  of  time  and  space, 
the  same  appearances  are  inscribed  in  the  con 
stant  faith  of  man  ?  Whether  nature  enjoy  a 
substantial  existence  without,  or  is  only  in  the 
apocalypse  of  the  mind,  it  is  alike  useful  and 
alike  venerable  to  me.  Be  it  what  it  may,  it  is 
ideal  to  me  so  long  as  I  cannot  try  the  accuracy 
of  my  senses. 

The  frivolous  make  themselves  merry  with 
the  Ideal  theory,  as  if  its  consequences  were 
burlesque  ;  as  if  it  affected  the  stability  of  na 
ture.  It  surely  does  not.  God  never  jests  with 
us,  and  will  not  compromise  the  end  of  nature 
by  permitting  any  inconsequence  in  its  proces 
sion.  Any*  distrust  of  the  permanence  of  laws 
would  paralyze  the  faculties  of  man.  Their 
permanence  is  sacredly  respected,  and  his  faith 
therein  is  perfect.  The  wheels  and  springs  of 
man  are  all  set  to  the  hypothesis  of  the  per 
manence  of  nature.  We  are  not  built  like  a 
ship  to  be  tossed,  but  like  a  house  to  stand.  It 
is  a  natural  consequence  of  this  structure,  that 
so  long  as  the  active  powers  predominate  over 
the  reflective,  we  resist  with  indignation  any  hint 
that  nature  is  more  short-lived  or  mutable  than 


IDEALISM  49 

spirit.  The  broker,  the  wheelwright,  the  car 
penter,  the  tollman,  are  much  displeased  at  the 
intimation. 

But  whilst  we  acquiesce  entirely  in  the  per 
manence  of  natural  laws,  the  question  of  the 
absolute  existence  of  nature  still  remains  open. 
It  is  the  uniform  effect  of  culture  on  the  .human 
mind,  not  to  shake  our  faith  in  the  stability  of 
particular  phenomena,  as  of  heat,  water,  azote ; 
but  to  lead  us  to  regard  nature  as  phenomenon, 
not  a  substance;  to  attribute  necessary  existence 
to  spirit ;  to  esteem  nature  as  an  accident  and 
an  effect. 

To  the  senses  and  the  unrenewed  under 
standing,  belongs  a  sort  of  instinctive  belief  in 
the  absolute  existence  of  nature.  In  their  view 
man  and  nature  are  indissolubly  joined.  Things 
are  ultimates,  and  they  never  look  beyond  their 
sphere.  The  presence  of  Reason  mars  this  faith. 
The  first  effort  of  thought  tends  to  relax  this 
despotism  of  the  senses  which  binds  us  to  na 
ture  as  if  we  were  a  part  of  it,  and  shows  us 
nature  aloof,  and,  as  it  were,  afloat.  Until  this 
higher  agency  intervened,  the  animal  eye  sees, 
with  wonderful  accuracy,  sharp  outlines  and 
colored  surfaces.  When  the  eye  of  Reason 
opens,  to  outline  and  surface  are  at  once  added 


50  NATURE 

grace  and  expression.  These  proceed  from  im 
agination  and  affection,  and  abate  somewhat  of 
the  angular  distinctness  of  objects.  Ef  the  Reason 
be  stimulated  to  more  earnest  vision,  outlines 
and  surfaces  become  transparent,  and  are  no 
longer  seen ;  causes  and  spirits  are  seen  through 

theiruTThe  best  moments  of  life  are  these  deli- 

•4 

clous  awakenings  of  the  higher  powers,  and  the 
reverential  withdrawing  of  nature  before  its  God. 

Let  us  proceed  to  indicate  the  effects  of  cul 
ture. 

i.  Our  first  institution  in  the  Ideal  philoso 
phy  is  a  hint  from  Nature  herself. 

Nature  is  made  to  conspire  with  spirit  to 
emancipate  us.  Certain  mechanical  changes,  a 
small  alteration  in  our  local  position,  apprizes 
us  of  a  dualism.  We  are  strangely  affected  by 
seeing  the  shore  from  a  moving  ship,  from  a 
balloon,  or  through  the  tints  of  an  unusual  sky. 
The  least  change  in  our  point  of  view  gives  the 
whole  world  a  pictorial  air.  A  man  who  seldom 
rides,  needs  only  to  get  into  a  coach  and  traverse 
his  own  town,  to  turn  the  street  into  a  puppet- 
show.  The  men,  the  women,  —  talking,  run 
ning,  bartering,  fighting, — the  earnest  mechanic, 
the  lounger,  the  beggar,  the  boys,  the  dogs,  are 
unrealized  at  once,  or,  at  least,  wholly  detached 


IDEALISM  51 

from  all  relation  to  the  observer,  and  seen  as 
apparent,  not  substantial  beings.  What  new 
thoughts  are  suggested  by  seeing  a  face  of  coun 
try  quite  familiar,  in  the  rapid  movement  of  the 
railroad  car !  Nay,  the  most  wonted  objects, 
(make  a  very  slight  change  in  the  point  of 
vision,)  please  us  most.  In  a  camera  obscura, 
the  butcher's  cart,  and  the  figure  of  one  of  our 
own  family  amuse  us.  So  a  portrait  of  a  well- 
known  face  gratifies  us.  Turn  the  eyes  upside 
down,  by  looking  at  the  landscape  through  your 
legs,  and  how  agreeable  is  the  picture,  though 
you  have  seen  it  any  time  these  twenty  years  ! 

In  these  cases,  by  mechanical  means,  is  sug 
gested  the  difference  between  the  observer  and 
the  spectacle  —  between  man  and  nature.  Hence 
arises  a  pleasure  mixed  with  awe ;  I  may  say,  a 
low  degree  of  the  sublime  is  felt,  from  the  fact, 
probably,  that  man  is  hereby  apprized  that  whilst 
the  world  is  a  spectacle,  something  in  himself  is 
stable. 

2.  In  a  higher  manner  the  poet  communicates 
the  same  pleasure.  By  a  few  strokes  he  deline 
ates,  as  on  air,  the  sun,  the  mountain,  the  camp, 
the  city,  the  hero,  the  maiden,  not  different  from 
what  we  know  them,  but  only  lifted  from  the 
ground  and  afloat  before  the  eye.  He  unfixes 


52  NATURE 

the  land  and  the  sea,  makes  them  revolve  around 
the  axis  of  his  primary  thought,  and  disposes 
them  anew.  Possessed  himself  by  a  heroic  pas 
sion,  he  uses  matter  as  symbols  of  it.  The 
sensual  man  conforms  thoughts  to  things  ;  the 
'  'poet  conforms  things  to  his  thoughts.  The  one 
esteems  nature  as  rooted  and  fast ;  the  other,  as 
fluid,  and  impresses  his  being  thereon.  To  him, 
the  refractory  world  is  ductile  and  flexible ;  he 
invests  dust  and  stones  with  humanity,  and 
makes  them  the  words  of  the  Reason.1  The 
Imagination  may  be  defined  to  be  the  use  which 
the  Reason  makes  of  the  material  world.  Shak- 
speare  possesses  the  power  of  subordinating  na 
ture  for  the  purposes  of  expression,  beyond  all 
poets.  His  imperial  muse  tosses  the  creation  like 
a  bauble  from  hand  to  hand,  and  uses  it  to  em 
body  any  caprice  of  thought  that  is  uppermost 
in  his  mind.  The  remotest  spaces  of  nature  are 
visited,  and  the  farthest  sundered  things  are 
brought  together,  by  a  subtile  spiritual  connec 
tion.  We  are  made  aware  that  magnitude  of 
material  things  is  relative,  and  all  objects  shrink 
and  expand  to  serve  the  passion  of  the  poet. 
Thus  in  his  sonnets,  the  lays  of  birds,  the  scents 
and  dyes  of  flowers  he  finds  to  be  the  shadow 
of  his  beloved;  time,  which  keeps  her  from  him, 


IDEALISM  53 

is  his  chest ;  the  suspicion  she  has  awakened,  is 
her  ornament ; 

The  ornament  of  beauty  is  Suspect, 

A  crow  which  flies  in  heaven's  sweetest  air.1 

His  passion  is  not  the  fruit  of  chance;  it  swells, 
as  he  speaks,  to  a  city,  or  a  state. 

No,  it  was  builded  far  from  accident ; 

It  suffers  not  in  smiling  pomp,  nor  falls 

Under  the  brow  of  thralling  discontent ; 

It  fears  not  policy,  that  heretic, 

That  works  on  leases  of  short  numbered  hours, 

But  all  alone  stands  hugely  politic.2 

In  the  strength  of  his  constancy,  the  Pyramids 
seem  to  him  recent  and  transitory.  The  fresh 
ness  of  youth  and  love  dazzles  him  with  its  re 
semblance  to  morning ; 

Take  those  lips  away 
Which  so  sweetly  were  forsworn  ; 
And  those  eyes,  —  the  break  of  day, 
Lights  that  do  mislead  the  morn.  3 

The  wild  beauty  of  this  hyperbole,  I  may  say  in 
passing,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  match  in  litera 
ture. 

This  transfiguration  which  all  material  objects 
undergo  through  the  passion  of  the  poet,  —  this 
power  which  he  exerts  to  dwarf  the  great,  to 
magnify  the  small,  —  might  be  illustrated  by  a 


54  NATURE 

thousand  examples  from  his  Plays.  I  have  be 
fore  me  the  Tempest,  and  will  cite  only  these  few 
lines. 

ARIEL.   The  strong  based  promontory 
Have  I  made  shake,  and  by  the  spurs  plucked  up 
The  pine  and  cedar. 

Prospero  calls  for  music  to  soothe  the  frantic 
Alonzo,  and  his  companions ; 

A  solemn  air,  and  the  best  comforter 
To  an  unsettled  fancy,  cure  thy  brains 
Now  useless,  boiled  within  thy  skull. 

Again ; 

The  charm  dissolves  apace, 
And,  as  the  morning  steals  upon  the  night, 
Melting  the  darkness,  so  their  rising  senses 
Begin  to  chase  the  ignorant  fumes  that  mantle 
Their  clearer  reason. 

Their  understanding 

Begins  to  swell  :  and  the  approaching  tide 
Will  shortly  fill  the  reasonable  shores 
That  now  lie  foul  and  muddy. 

The  perception  of  real  affinities  between  events 
(that  is  to  say,  of  ideal  affinities,  for  those  only 
are  real),  enables  the  poet  thus  to  make  free 
with  the  most  imposing  forms  and  phenomena 
of  the  world,  and  to  assert  the  predominance  of 
the  soul. 


IDEALISM  55 

3.  Whilst  thus  the  poet  animates  nature  with 
his  own  thoughts,  he  differs  from  the  philoso 
pher  only  herein,  that  the  one  proposes  Beauty  as 
his  main  end ;  the  other  Truth.  But  the  phi 
losopher,  not  less  than  the  poet,  postpones  the 
apparent  order  and  relations  of  things  to  the 
empire  of  thought.  "  The  problem  of  philoso 
phy,"  according  to  Plato,  "  is,  for  all  that  exists 
conditionally,  to  find  a  ground  unconditioned 
and  absolute."  It  proceeds  on  the  faith  that 
a  law  determines  all  phenomena,  which  being 
known,  the  phenomena  can  be  predicted.  That 
law,  when  in  the  mind,  is  an  idea.  Its  beauty 
is  infinite.  The  true  philosopher  and  the  true 
poet  are  one,  and  a  beauty,  which  is  truth,  and 
a  truth,  which  is  beauty,  is  the  aim  of  both.  Is 
not  the  charm  of  one  of  Plato's  or  Aristotle's 
definitions  strictly  like  that  of  the  Antigone  of 
Sophocles  ?  It  is,  in  both  cases,  that  a  spiritual 
life  has  been  imparted  to  nature ;  that  the  solid 
seeming  block  of  matter  has  been  pervaded  and 
dissolved  by  a  thought;1  that  this  feeble  human 
being  has  penetrated  the  vast  masses  of  nature 
with  an  informing  soul,  and  recognized  itself  in 
their  harmony,  that  is,  seized  their  law.  In 
physics,  when  this  is  attained,  the  memory  dis- 
burthens  itself  of  its  cumbrous  catalogues  of 


56  NATURE 

particulars,  and  carries  centuries  of  observation 
in  a  single  formula. 

Thus  even  in  physics,  the  material  is  degraded 
before  the  spiritual.  The  astronomer,  the  geo 
meter,  rely  on  their  irrefragable  analysis,  and 
disdain  the  results  of  observation.  The  sublime 
remark  of  Euler  on  his  law  of  arches,  "  This  will 
be  found  contrary  to  all  experience,  yet  is  true;" 
had  already  transferred  nature  into  the  mind, 
and  left  matter  like  an  outcast  corpse.1 

4.  Intellectual  science  has  been  observed  to 
beget  invariably  a  doubt  of  the  existence  of  mat 
ter.  Turgot  said,  "  He  that  has  never  doubted 
the  existence  of  matter,  may  be  assured  he  has  no 
aptitude  for  metaphysical  inquiries."  It  fastens 
the  attention  upon  immortal  necessary  uncreated 
natures,  that  is,  upon  Ideas;  and  in  their  pre 
sence  we  feel  that  the  outward  circumstance  is 
a  dream  and  a  shade.  Whilst  we  wait  in  this 
Olympus  of  gods,  we  think  of  nature  as  an 
appendix  to  the  soul.  We  ascend  into  their 
region,  and  know  that  these  are  the  thoughts 
of  the  Supreme  Being.  "  These  are  they  who 
were  set  up  from  everlasting,  from  the  beginning, 
or  ever  the  earth  was.  When  he  prepared  the 
heavens,  they  were  there ;  when  he  established 
the  clouds  above,  when  he  strengthened  the  foun- 


IDEALISM  57 

tains  of  the  deep.  Then  they  were  by  him,  as 
one  brought  up  with  him.  Of  them  took  he 
counsel/'  ' 

Their  influence  is  proportionate.  As  objects 
of  science  they  are  accessible  to  few  men.  Yet 
all  men  are  capable  of  being  raised  by  piety 
or  by  passion,  into  their  region.  And  no  man 
touches  these  divine  natures,  without  becoming, 
in  some  degree,  himself  divine.  Like  a  new  soul, 
they  renew  the  body.  We  become  physically 
nimble  and  lightsome ;  we  tread  on  air ;  life  is 
no  longer  irksome,  and  we  think  it  will  never 
be  so.  No  man  fears  age  or  misfortune  or  death 
in  their  serene  company,  for  he  is  transported 
out  of  the  district  of  change.  Whilst  we  behold 
unveiled  the  nature  of  Justice  and  Truth,  we 
learn  the  difference  between  the  absolute  and 
the  conditional  or  relative.  We  apprehend  the 
absolute.  As  it  were,  for  the  first  time,  we  exist. 
We  become  immortal,  for  we  learn  that  time 
and  space  are  relations  of  matter ;  that  with  a 
perception  of  truth  or  a  virtuous  will  they  have 
no  affinity. 

5.  Finally,  religion  and  ethics,  which  may  be 
fitly  called  the  practice  of  ideas,  or  the  introduc 
tion  of  ideas  into  life,  have  an  analogous  effect 
with  all  lower  culture,  in  degrading  nature  and 


58  NATURE 

suggesting  its  dependence  on  spirit.  Ethics  and 
religion  differ  herein  ;  that  the  one  is  the  system 
of  human  duties  commencing  from  man;  the 
other,  from  God.  Religion  includes  the  person 
ality  of  God ;  Ethics  does  not.  They  are  one 
to  our  present  design.  They  both  put  nature 
under  foot.  The  first  and  last  lesson  of  religion 
is,  "  The  things  that  are  seen,  are  temporal ;  the 
things  that  are  unseen,  are  eternal."  It  puts  an 
affront  upon  nature.  It  does  that  for  the  un 
schooled,  which  philosophy  does  for  Berkeley 
and  Viasa.  The  uniform  language  that  may  be 
heard  in  the  churches  of  the  most  ignorant  sects 
is,  —  "  Contemn  the  unsubstantial  shows  of  the 
world ;  they  are  vanities,  dreams,  shadows,  un 
realities  ;  seek  the  realities  of  religion."  The 
devotee  flouts  nature.  Some  theosophists  have 
arrived  at  a  certain  hostility  and  indignation  to 
wards  matter,  as  the  Manichean  and  Plotinus.1 
They  distrusted  in  themselves  any  looking  back 
to  these  flesh  -  pots  of  Egypt.  Plotinus  was 
ashamed  of  his  body.  In  short,  they  might  all 
say  of  matter,  what  Michael  Angelo  said  of  ex 
ternal  beauty,  "  It  is  the  frail  and  weary  weed, 
in  which  God  dresses  the  soul  which  he  has 
called  into  time." 

It  appears  that  motion,  poetry,  physical  and 


IDEALISM  59 

intellectual  science,  and  religion,  all  tend  to  af 
fect  our  convictions  of  the  reality  of  the  external 
world.  But  I  own  there  is  something  ungrate 
ful  in  expanding  too  curiously  the  particulars  of 
the  general  proposition,  that  all  culture  tends  to 
imbue  us  with  idealism.  I  have  no  hostility  to 
nature,  but  a  child's  love  to  it.  I  expand  and 
live  in  the  warm  day  like  corn  and  melons.  Let 
us  speak  her  fair.  I  do  not  wish  to  fling  stones 
at  my  beautiful  mother,  nor  soil  my  gentle  nest. 
I  only  wish  to  indicate  the  true  position  of  na 
ture  in  regard  to  man,  wherein  to  establish  man 
all  right  education  tends ;  as  the  ground  which 
to  attain  is  the  object  of  human  life,  that  is,  of 
man's  connection  with  nature.  Culture  inverts 
the  vulgar  views  of  nature,  and  brings  the  mind 
to  call  that  apparent  which  it  uses  to  call  real, 
and  that  real  which  it  uses  to  call  visionary. 
Children,  it  is  true,  believe  in  the  external  world. 
The  belief  that  it  appears  only,  is  an  after 
thought,  but  with  culture  this  faith  will  as  surely 
arise  on  the  mind  as  did  the  first. 

The  advantage  of  the  ideal  theory  over  the 
popular  faith  is  this,  that  it  presents  the  world 
in  precisely  that  view  which  is  most  desirable  to 
the  mind.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  view  which  Reason, 
both  speculative  and  practical,  that  is,  philoso- 


60  NATURE 

phy  and  virtue,  take.  For  seen  in  the  light  of 
thought,  the  world  always  is  phenomenal ;  and 
virtue  subordinates  it  to  the  mind.  Idealism  sees 
the  world  in  God.  It  beholds  the  whole  circle 
of  persons  and  things,  of  actions  and  events,  of 
country  and  religion,  not  as  painfully  accumu 
lated,  atom  after  atom,  act  after  act,  in  an  aged 
creeping  Past,  but  as  one  vast  picture  which  God 
paints  on  the  instant  eternity  for  the  contempla 
tion  of  the  soul.  Therefore  the  soul  holds  it 
self  off  from  a  too  trivial  and  microscopic  study 
of  the  universal  tablet.  It  respects  the  end  too 
much  to  immerse  itself  in  the  means.  It  sees 
something  more  important  in  Christianity  than 
the  scandals  of  ecclesiastical  history  or  the  nice 
ties  of  criticism  ;  and,  very  incurious  concerning 
persons  or  miracles,  and  not  at  all  disturbed  by 
chasms  of  historical  evidence,  it  accepts  from 
God  the  phenomenon,  as  it  finds  it,  as  the  pure 
and  awful  form  of  religion  in  the  world.  It  is 
not  hot  and  passionate  at  the  appearance  of  what 
it  calls  its  own  good  or  bad  fortune,  at  the  union 
or  opposition  of  other  persons.  No  man  is  its 
enemy.  It  accepts  whatsoever  befalls,  as  part  of 
its  lesson.  It  is  a  watcher  more  than  a  doer,  and 
it  is  a  doer,  only  that  it  may  the  better  watch. 


VII 
SPIRIT 

IT  is  essential  to  a  true  theory  of  nature 
and  of  man,  that  it  should  contain  some 
what  progressive.  Uses  that  are  exhausted  or 
that  may  be,  and  facts  that  end  in  the  state 
ment,  cannot  be  all  that  is  true  of  this  brave 
lodging  wherein  man  is  harbored,  and  wherein 
all  his  faculties  find  appropriate  and  endless  ex 
ercise.  And  all  the  uses  of  nature  admit  of  being 
summed  in  one,  which  yields  the  activity  of  man 
an  infinite  scope.  Through  all  its  kingdoms,  to 
the  suburbs  and  outskirts  of  things,  it  is  faithful 
to  the  cause  whence  it  had  its  origin.  It  always 
speaks  of  Spirit.  It  suggests  the  absolute.  It  is 
a  perpetual  effect.  It  is  a  great  shadow  pointing 
always  to  the  sun  behind  us. 

The  aspect  of  Nature  is  devout.  Like  the 
figure  of  Jesus,  she  stands  with  bended  head, 
and  hands  folded  upon  the  breast.  The  hap 
piest  man  is  he  who  learns  from  nature  the 
lesson  of  worship. 

Of  that  ineffable  essence  which  we  call  Spirit, 
he  that  thinks  most,  will  say  least.  We  can  fore- 


62  NATURE 

see  God  in  the  coarse,  and,  as  it  were,  distant 
phenomena  of  matter  ;  but  when  we  try  to  de 
fine  and  describe  himself,  both  language  and 
thought  desert  us,  and  we  are  as  helpless  as 
fools  and  savages.1  That  essence  refuses  to  be 
recorded  in  propositions,  but  when  man  has 
worshipped  him  intellectually,  the  noblest  min 
istry  of  nature  is  to  stand  as  the  apparition  of 
God.  It  is  the  organ  through  which  the  uni 
versal  spirit  speaks  to  the  individual,  and  strives 
to  lead  back  the  individual  to  it. 

When  we  consider  Spirit,  we  see  that  the 
views  already  presented  do  not  include  the 
whole  circumference  of  man.  We  must  add 
some  related  thoughts. 

Three  problems  are  put  by  nature  to  the 
mind:  What  is  matter?  Whence  is  it?  and 
Whereto  ?  The  first  of  these  questions  only,  the 
ideal  theory  answers.  Idealism  saith  :  matter  is 
a  phenomenon,  not  a  substance.  Idealism  ac 
quaints  us  with  the  total  disparity  between  the 
evidence  of  our  own  being  and  the  evidence  of 
the  world's  being.  The  one  is  perfect ;  the  other, 
incapable  of  any  assurance  ;  the  mind  is  a  part 
of  the  nature  of  things  ;  the  world  is  a  divine 
dream,  from  which  we  may  presently  awake  to 
the  glories  and  certainties  of  day.  Idealism  is  a 


SPIRIT  63 

hypothesis  to  account  for  nature  by  other  prin 
ciples  than  those  of  carpentry  and  chemistry. 
Yet,  if  it  only  deny  the  existence  of  matter,  it 
does  not  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  spirit.  It 
leaves  God  out  of  me.  It  leaves  me  in  the 
splendid  labyrinth  of  my  perceptions,  to  wander 
without  end.  Then  the  heart  resists  it,  because 
it  balks  the  affections  in  denying  substantive 
being  to  men  and  women.  Nature  is  so  per 
vaded  with  human  life  that  there  is  something 
of  humanity  in  all  and  in  every  particular.  But 
this  theory  makes  nature  foreign  to  me,  and 
does  not  account  for  that  consanguinity  which 
we  acknowledge  to  it. 

Let  it  stand  then,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  merely  as  a  useful  introductory  hy 
pothesis,  serving  to  apprize  us  of  the  eternal 
distinction  between  the  soul  and  the  world. 

But  when,  following  the  invisible  steps  of 
thought,  we  come  to  inquire,  Whence  is  mat 
ter?  and  Whereto?  many  truths  arise  to  us  out 
of  the  recesses  of  consciousness.  We  learn  that 
the  highest  is  present  to  the  soul  of  man ;  that 
the  dread  universal  essence,  which  is  not  wisdom, 
or  love,  or  beauty,  or  power,  but  all  in  one,  and 
each  entirely,  is  that  for  which  all  things  exist, 
and  that  by  which  they  are  ;  that  spirit  creates  ; 


64  NATURE 

that  behind  nature,  throughout  nature,  spirit  is 
present ;  one  and  not  compound  it  does  not  act 
upon  us  from  without,  that  is,  in  space  and  time, 
but  spiritually,  or  through  ourselves  :  therefore, 
that  spirit,  that  is,  the  Supreme  Being,  does  not 
build  up  nature  around  us,  but  puts  it  forth 
through  us,  as  the  life  of  the  tree  puts  forth  new 
branches  and  leaves  through  the  pores  of  the 
old.  As  a  plant  upon  the  earth,  so  a  man  rests 
upon  the  bosom  of  God  ;  he  is  nourished  by 
unfailing  fountains,  and  draws  at  his  need  inex 
haustible  power.  Who  can  set  bounds  to  the 
possibilities  of  man  ?  Once  inhale  the  upper  air, 
being  admitted  to  behold  the  absolute  natures 
of  justice  and  truth,  and  we  learn  that  man  has 
access  to  the  entire  mind  of  the  Creator,  is  him 
self  the  creator  in  the  finite.  This  view,  which 
admonishes  me  where  the  sources  of  wisdom  and 
power  lie,  and  points  to  virtue  as  to 

tf  The  golden  key 
Which  opes  the  palace  of  eternity,"1 

carries  upon  its  face  the  highest  certificate  of 
truth,  because  it  animates  me  to  create  my  own 
world  through  the  purification  of  my  soul. 

The  world  proceeds  from  the  same  spirit  as 
the  body  of  man.  It  is  a  remoter  and  inferior 
incarnation  of  God,  a  projection  of  God  in  the 


SPIRIT  65 

unconscious.  But  it  differs  from  the  body  in 
one  important  respect,  It  is  not,  like  that,  now 
subjected  to  the  human  will.  Its  serene  order 
is  inviolable  by  us.  It  is,  therefore,  to  us,  the 
present  expositor  of  the  divine  mind.  It  is  a 
fixed  point  whereby  we  may  measure  our  de 
parture.  As  we  degenerate,  the  contrast  between 
us  and  our  house  is  more  evident.  We  are  as 
much  strangers  in  nature  as  we  are  aliens  from 
God.  We  do  not  understand  the  notes  of  birds. 
The  fox  and  the  deer  run  away  from  us  ;  the 
bear  and  tiger  rend  us.  We  do  not  know  the 
uses  of  more  than  a  few  plants,  as  corn  and 
the  apple,  the  potato  and  the  vine.  Is  not  the 
landscape,  every  glimpse  of  which  hath  a  gran 
deur,  a  face  of  him  ?  Yet  this  may  show  us 
what  discord  is  between  man  and  nature,  for 
you  cannot  freely  admire  a  noble  landscape  if 
laborers  are  digging  in  the  field  hard  by.  The 
poet  finds  something  ridiculous  in  his  delight 
until  he  is  out  of  the  sight  of  men. 


VIII 
PROSPECTS 

IN  inquiries  respecting  the  laws  of  the  world 
and  the  frame  of  things,  the  highest  reason 
is  always  the  truest.  That  which  seems  faintly 
possible,  it  is  so  refined,  is  often  faint  and  dim 
because  it  is  deepest  seated  in  the  mind  among 
the  eternal  verities.  Empirical  science  is  apt  to 
cloud  the  sight,  and  by  the  very  knowledge  of 
functions  and  processes  to  bereave  the  student 
of  the  manly  contemplation  of  the  whole.  The 
savant  becomes  unpoetic.  But  the  best  read  nat 
uralist  who  lends  an  entire  and  devout  atten 
tion  to  truth,  will  see  that  there  remains  much 
to  learn  of  his  relation  to  the  world,  and  that 
it  is  not  to  be  learned  by  any  addition  or  sub 
traction  or  other  comparison  of  known  quanti 
ties,  but  is  arrived  at  by  untaught  sallies  of  the 
spirit,  by  a  continual  self- recovery,  and  by  entire 
humility.  He  will  perceive  that  there  are  far 
more  excellent  qualities  in  the  student  than  pre- 
ciseness  and  infallibility ;  that  a  guess  is  often 
more  fruitful  than  an  indisputable  affirmation, 
and  that  a  dream  may  let  us  deeper  into  the 


PROSPECTS  67 

secret  of  nature  than  a  hundred  concerted  ex 
periments. 

For  the  problems  to  be  solved  are  precisely 
those  which  the  physiologist  and  the  natural 
ist  omit  to  state.  It  is  not  so  pertinent  to 
man  to  know  all  the  individuals  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  as  it  is  to  know  whence  and  whereto 
is  this  tyrannizing  unity  in  his  constitution, 
which  evermore  separates  and  classifies  things, 
endeavoring  to  reduce  the  most  diverse  to  one 
form.  When  I  behold  a  rich  landscape,  it  is 
less  to  my  purpose  to  recite  correctly  the  order 
and  superposition  of  the  strata,  than  to  know 
why  all  thought  of  multitude  is  lost  in  a  tran 
quil  sense  of  unity.  I  cannot  greatly  honor 
minuteness  in  details,  so  long  as  there  is  no 
hint  to  explain  the  relation  between  things  and 
thoughts  ;  no  ray  upon  the  metaphysics  of  con- 
chology,  of  botany,  of  the  arts,  to  show  the  re 
lation  of  the  forms  of  flowers,  shells,  animals, 
architecture,  to  the  mind,  and  build  science 
upon  ideas.  In  a  cabinet  of  natural  history,  we 
become  sensible  of  a  certain  occult  recognition 
and  sympathy  in  regard  to  the  most  unwieldy 
and  eccentric  forms  of  beast,  fish,  and  insect.1 
The  American  who  has  been  confined,  in  his 
own  country,  to  the  sight  of  buildings  designed 


68  NATURE 

after  foreign  models,  is  surprised  on  entering 
York  Minster  or  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  by  the 
feeling  that  these  structures  are  imitations  also, 
—  faint  copies  of  an  invisible  archetype.  Nor 
has  science  sufficient  humanity,  so  long  as  the 
naturalist  overlooks  that  wonderful  congruity 
which  subsists  between  man  and  the  world;  of 
which  he  is  lord,  not  because  he  is  the  most 
subtile  inhabitant,  but  because  he  is  its  head  and 
heart,  and  finds  something  of  himself  in  every 
great  and  small  thing,  in  every  mountain  stra 
tum,  in  every  new  law  of  color,  fact  of  astronomy, 
or  atmospheric  influence  which  observation  or 
analysis  lays  open.  A  perception  of  this  mystery 
inspires  the  muse  of  George  Herbert,  the  beau 
tiful  psalmist  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
following  lines  are  part  of  his  little  poem  on 
Man. 

Man  is  all  symmetry, 
Full  of  proportions,  one  limb  to  another, 

And  all  to  all  the  world  besides. 

Each  part  may  call  the  farthest,  brother; 
For  head  with  foot  hath  private  amity, 

And  both  with  moons  and  tides. 

Nothing  hath  got  so  far 
But  man  hath  caught  and  kept  it  as  his  prey; 
His  eyes  dismount  the  highest  star: 


PROSPECTS  69 

He  is  in  little  all  the  sphere. 
Herbs  gladly  cure  our  flesh,  because  that  they 
Find  their  acquaintance  there. 

For  us,  the  winds  do  blow, 
The  earth  doth  rest,  heaven  move,  and  fountains  flow; 

Nothing  we  see,  but  means  our  good, 

As  our  delight,  or  as  our  treasure  ; 
The  whole  is  either  our  cupboard  of  food, 

Or  cabinet  of  pleasure. 

The  stars  have  us  to  bed  : 
Night  draws  the  curtain;  which  the  sun  withdraws. 

Music  and  light  attend  our  head. 

All  things  unto  our  flesh  are  kind, 
In  their  descent  and  being;   to  our  mind, 

In  their  ascent  and  cause. 

More  servants  wait  on  man 
Than  he  '11  take  notice  of.      In  every  path, 
He  treads  down  that  which  doth  befriend  him 
When  sickness  makes  him  pale  and  wan. 
Oh  mighty  1'ove!   Man  is  one  world,  and  hath 
9  Another  to  attend  him. 

The  perception  of  this  class  of  truths  makes 
the  attraction  which  draws  men  to  science,  but 
the  end  is  lost  sight  of  in  attention  to  the 
means.  In  view  of  this  half-sight  of  science,  we 
accept  the  sentence  of  Plato,  that  "  poetry 
comes  nearer  to  vital  truth  than  history." 


70  NATURE 

Every  surmise  and  vaticination  of  the  mind  is 
entitled  to  a  certain  respect,  and  we  learn  to 
prefer  imperfect  theories,  and  sentences  which 
contain  glimpses  of  truth,  to  digested  systems 
which  have  no  one  valuable  suggestion.  A  wise 
writer  will  feel  that  the  ends  of  study  and  com 
position  are  best  answered  by  announcing  un 
discovered  regions  of  thought,  and  so  com 
municating,  through  hope,  new  activity  to  the 
torpid  spirit. 

I  shall  therefore  conclude  this  essay  with 
some  traditions  of  man  and  nature,  which  a 
certain  poet  sang  to  me  ;  and  which,  as  they 
have  always  been  in  the  world,  and  perhaps  re 
appear  to  every  bard,  may  be  both  history  and 
prophecy.1 

(  The  foundations  of  man  are  not  in  matter, 
but  in  spirit.  But  the  element  of  spirit  is  eter 
nity.  To  it,  therefore,  the  longest  series  of 
events,  the  oldest  chronologies  are  young  and 
recent.  In  the  cycle  of  the  universal  man,  from 
whom  the  known  individuals  proceed,  centuries 
are  points,  and  all  history  is  but  the  epoch  of 
one  degradation. 

f  We  distrust  and  deny  inwardly  our  sym 
pathy  with  nature.  We  own  and  disown  our 
relation  to  it,  by  turns.  We  are  like  Nebuchad- 


PROSPECTS  71 

nezzar,  dethroned,  bereft  of  reason,  and  eating 
grass  like  an  ox.  But  who  can  set  limits  to  the 
remedial  force  of  spirit? 

c  A  man  is  a  god  in  ruins.  When  men  are 
innocent,  life  shall  be  longer,  and  shall  pass  into 
the  immortal  as  gently  as  we  awake  from  dreams. 
Now,  the  world  would  be  insane  and  rabid,  if 
these  disorganizations  should  last  for  hundreds 
of  years.  It  is  kept  in  check  by  death  and  in 
fancy.  Infancy  is  the  perpetual  Messiah,  which 
comes  into  the  arms  of  fallen  men,  and  pleads 
with  them  to  return  to  paradise. 

'Man  is  the  dwarf  of  himself.  Once  he  was 
permeated  and  dissolved  by  spirit.  He  rilled 
nature  with  his  overflowing  currents.  Out  from 
him  sprang  the  sun  and  moon  ;  from  man  the 
sun,  from  woman  the  moon.  The  laws  of  his 
mind,  the  periods  of  his  actions  externized  them 
selves  into  day  and  night,  into  the  year  and  the 
seasons.  But,  having  made  for  himself  this  huge 
shell,  his  waters  retired ;  he  no  longer  fills  the 
veins  and  veinlets  ;  he  is  shrunk  to  a  drop.  He 
sees  that  the  structure  still  fits  him,  but  fits  him 
colossally.  Say,  rather,  once  it  fitted  him,  now  it 
corresponds  to  him  from  far  and  on  high.  He 
adores  timidly  his  own  work.  Now  is  man  the 
follower  of  the  sun,  and  woman  the  follower  of 


72  NATURE 

the  moon.  Yet  sometimes  he  starts  in  his  slum 
ber,  and  wonders  at  himself  and  his  house,  and 
muses  strangely  at  the  resemblance  betwixt  him 
and  it.  He  perceives  that  if  his  law  is  still  para 
mount,  if  still  he  have  elemental  power,  if  his 
word  is  sterling  yet  in  nature,  it  is  not  conscious 
power,  it  is  not  inferior  but  superior  to  his  will. 
It  is  instinct.'  Thus  my  Orphic  poet  sang.1 

At  present,  man  applies  to  nature  but  half  his 
force.  He  works  on  the  world  with  his  under 
standing  alone.  He  lives  in  it  and  masters  it  by 
a  penny-wisdom;  and  he  that  works  most  in  it 
is  but  a  half-man,  and  whilst  his  arms  are  strong 
and  his  digestion  good,  his  mind  is  imbruted, 
and  he  is  a  selfish  savage.  His  relation  to  na 
ture,  his  power  over  it,  is  through  the  under 
standing,,  as  by  manure ;  the  economic  use  of 
fire,  wind,  water,  and  the  mariner's  needle ; 
steam,  coal,  chemical  agriculture ;  the  repairs 
of  the  human  body  by  the  dentist  and  the  sur 
geon.  This  is  such  a  resumption  of  power  as  if 
a  banished  king  should  buy  his  territories  inch 
by  inch,  instead  of  vaulting  at  once  into  his 
throne.  Meantime,  in  the  thick  darkness,  there 
are  not  wanting  gleams  of  a  better  light, — oc 
casional  examples  of  the  action  of  man  upon 
nature  with  his  entire  force,  —  with  reason  as 


PROSPECTS  73 

well  as  understanding.  Such  examples  are,  the 
traditions  of  miracles  in  the  earliest  antiquity 
of  all  nations  ;  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ ;  the 
achievements  of  a  principle,  as  in  religious  and 
political  revolutions,  and  in  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade;  the  miracles  of  enthusiasm, 
as  those  reported  of  Swedenborg,  Hohenlohe,1 
and  the  Shakers ;  many  obscure  and  yet  con 
tested  facts,  now  arranged  under  the  name  of 
Animal  Magnetism  ;  prayer  ;  eloquence  ;  self- 
healing  ;  and  the  wisdom  of  children.  These 
are  examples  of  Reason's  momentary  grasp  of 
the  sceptre;  the  exertions  of  a  power  which  ex 
ists  not  in  time  or  space,  but  an  instantaneous 
in-streaming  causing  power.  The  difference 
between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  force  of  man 
is  happily  figured  by  the  schoolmen,  in  saying, 
that  the  knowledge  of  man  is  an  evening  know 
ledge,  vespertina  cognitio,  but  that  of  God  is  a 
morning  knowledge,  matutina  cognitio* 

The  problem  of  restoring  to  the  world  origi 
nal  and  eternal  beauty  is  solved  by  the  redemp 
tion  of  the  soul.  The  ruin  or  the  blank  that  we 
see  when  we  look  at  nature,  is  in  our  own  eye. 
The  axis  of  vision  is  not  coincident  with  the 
axis  of  things,  and  so  they  appear  not  transpar 
ent  but  opaque.  The  reason  why  the  world 


74  NATURE 

lacks  unity,  and  lies  broken  and  in  heaps,  is  be 
cause  man  is  disunited  with  himself.  He  cannot 
be  a  naturalist  until  he  satisfies  all  the  demands 
of  the  spirit.  Love  is  as  much  its  demand  as 
perception.  Indeed,  neither  can  be  perfect  with 
out  the  other.  In  the  uttermost  meaning  of 
the  words,  thought  is  devout,  and  devotion  is 
thought.  Deep  calls  unto  deep.  But  in  actual 
life,  the  marriage  is  not  celebrated.  There  are 
innocent  men  who  worship  God  after  the  tradi 
tion  of  their  fathers,  but  their  sense  of  duty  has 
not  yet  extended  to  the  use  of  all  their  faculties. 
And  there  are  patient  naturalists,  but  they  freeze 
their  subject  under  the  wintry  light  of  the  under 
standing.  Is  not  prayer  also  a  study  of  truth, 
—  a  sally  of  the  soul  into  the  unfound  infinite? 
No  man  ever  prayed  heartily  without  learning 
something.  But  when  a  faithful  thinker,  reso 
lute  to  detach  every  object  from  personal  rela 
tions  and  see  it  in  the  light  of  thought,  shall,  at 
the  same  time,  kindle  science  with  the  fire  of  the 
holiest  affections,  then  will  God  go  forth  anew 
into  the  creation. 

It  will  not  need,  when  the  mind  is  prepared 
for  study,  to  search  for  objects.  The  invariable 
mark  of  wisdom  is  to  see  the  miraculous  in  the 
common.  What  is  a  day  ?  What  is  a  year  ? 


The  Old  Manse 


76  NATURE 

to  pass  what  my  poet  said  :  l  Nature  is  not  fixed 
but  fluid.  Spirit  alters,  moulds,  makes  it.  The 
immobility  or  bruteness  of  nature  is  the  absence 
of  spirit ;  to  pure  spirit  it  is  fluid,  it  is  volatile, 
it  is  obedient.  Every  spirit  builds  itself  a  house, 
and  beyond  its  house  a  world,  and  beyond  its 
world  a  heaven.  Know  then  that  the  world 
exists  for  you.  For  you  is  the  phenomenon 
perfect.  What  we  are,  that  only  can  we  see. 
All  that  Adam  had,  all  that  Caesar  could,  you 
have  and  can  do.  Adam  called  his  house,  heaven 
and  earth  ;  Caesar  called  his  house,  Rome  ;  you 
perhaps  call  yours,  a  cobbler's  trade  ;  a  hundred 
acres  of  ploughed  land  ;  or  a  scholar's  garret. 
Yet  line  for  line  and  point  for  point  your  do 
minion  is  as  great  as  theirs,  though  without  fine 
names.  Build  therefore  your  own  world.  As 
fast  as  you  conform  your  life  to  the  pure  idea 
in  your  mind,  that  will  unfold  its  great  propor 
tions.  A  correspondent  revolution  in  things  will 
attend  the  influx  of  the  spirit.  So  fast  will  dis 
agreeable  appearances,  swine,  spiders,  snakes, 
pests,  mad-houses,  prisons,  enemies,  vanish  ; 
they  are  temporary  and  shall  be  no  more  seen. 
'The  sordor  and  filths  of  nature,  the  sun  shall 
dry  up  and  the  wind  exhale.1  As  when  the 
summer  comes  from  the  south  the  snow-banks 


PROSPECTS  77 

melt  and  the  face  of  the  earth  becomes  green 
before  it,  so  shall  the  advancing  spirit  create  its 
ornaments  along  its  path,  and  carry  with  it  the 
beauty  it  visits  and  the  song  which  enchants  it; 
it  shall  draw  beautiful  faces,  warm  hearts,  wise 
discourse,  and  heroic  acts,  around  its  way,  until 
evil  is  no  more  seen.  The  kingdom  of  man  over 
nature,  which  cometh  not  with  observation,  — 
a  dominion  such  as  now  is  beyond  his  dream 
of  God,  —  he  shall  enter  without  more  wonder 
than  the  blind  man  feels  who  is  gradually  re 
stored  to  perfect  sight/ 


THE   AMERICAN    SCHOLAR 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHI  BETA 

KAPPA  SOCIETY,  AT  CAMBRIDGE, 

AUGUST  31,   1837. 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN: 

1  GREET  you  on  the  recommencement  of 
our  literary  year.  Our  anniversary  is  one  of 
hope,  and,  perhaps,  not  enough  of  labor.  We 
do  not  meet  for  games  of  strength  or  skill,  for 
the  recitation  of  histories,  tragedies,  and  odes, 
like  the  ancient  Greeks  ;  for  parliaments  of  love 
and  poesy,  like  the  Troubadours ;  nor  for  the 
advancement  of  science,  like  our  contemporaries 
in  the  British  and  European  capitals.  Thus  far, 
our  holiday  has  been  simply  a  friendly  sign  of 
the  survival  of  the  love  of  letters  amongst  a  peo 
ple  too  busy  to  give  to  letters  any  more.  As 
such  it  is  precious  as  the  sign  of  an  indestructi 
ble  instinct.  Perhaps  the  time  is  already  come 
when  it  ought  to  be,  and  will  be,  something  else; 
when  the  sluggard  intellect  of  this  continent  will 
look  from  under  its  iron  lids  and  fill  the  post 
poned  expectation  of  the  world  with  something 
better  than  the  exertions  of  mechanical  skill. 
Our  day  of  dependence,  our  long  apprenticeship 
to  the  learning  of  other  lands,  draws  to  a  close.1 


82  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

The  millions  that  around  us  are  rushing  into 
life,  .cannot  always  be  fed  on  the  sere  remains  of 
foreign  harvests.  Events, actions  arise,  that  must 
be  sung,  that  will  sing  themselves.  Who  can 
doubt  that  poetry  will  revive  and  lead  in  a  new 
age,  as  the  star  in  the  constellation  Harp,  which 
now  flames  in  our  zenith,  astronomers  announce, 
shall  one  day  be  the  pole-star  for  a  thousand 
years  ? 

In  this  hope  I  accept  the  topic  which  not  only 
usage  but  the  nature  of  our  association  seem  to 
prescribe  to  this  day, —  the  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR. 
Year  by  year  we  come  up  hither  to  read  one 
more  chapter  of  his  biography.  Let  us  inquire 
what  light  new  days  and  events  have  thrown  on 
his  character  and  his  hopes. 

It  is  one  of  those  fables  which  out  of  an  un 
known  antiquity  convey  an  unlooked-for  wis 
dom,  that  the  gods,  in  the  beginning,  divided 
Man  into  men,1  that  he  might  be  more  helpful 
to  himself;  just  as  the  hand  was  divided  into 
fingers,  the  better  to  answer  its  end. 

The  old  fable  covers  a  doctrine  ever  new  and 
sublime ;  that  there  is  One  Man,  —  present  to 
all  particular  men  only  partially,  or  through  one 
faculty ;  and  that  you  must  take  the  whole  so 
ciety  to  find  the  whole  man.  Man  is  not  a  farmer, 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  83 

or  a  professor,  or  an  engineer,  but  he  is  all.  Man 
is  priest,  and  scholar,  and  statesman,  and  pro 
ducer,  and  soldier.  In  the  divided  or  social  state 
these  functions  are  parcelled  out  to  individuals, 
each  of  whom  aims  to  do  his  stint  of  the  joint 
work,  whilst  each  other  performs  his.  The  fable 
implies  that  the  individual,  to  possess  himself, 
must  sometimes  return  from  his  own  labor  to 
embrace  all  the  other  laborers.  But,  unfortu 
nately,  this  original  unit,  this  fountain  of  power, 
has  been  so  distributed  to  multitudes,  has  been 
so  minutely  subdivided  and  peddled  out,  that  it 
is  spilled  into  drops,  and  cannot  be  gathered. 
The  state  of  society  is  one  in  which  the  mem 
bers  have  suffered  amputation  from  the  trunk, 
and  strut  about  so  many  walking  monsters,  —  a 
good  finger,  a  neck,  a  stomach,  an  elbow,  but 
never  a  man. 

Man  is  thus  metamorphosed  into  a  thing,  into 
many  things.  The  planter,  who  is  Man  sent  out 
into  the  field  to  gather  food,  is  seldom  cheered 
by  any  idea  of  the  true  dignity  of  his  ministry. 
He  sees  his  bushel  and  his  cart,  and  nothing 
beyond,  and  sinks  into  the  farmer,  instead  of 
Man  on  the  farm.  The  tradesman  scarcely  ever 
gives  an  ideal  worth  to  his  work,  but  is  ridden 
by  the  routine  of  his  craft,  and  the  soul  is  sub- 


84  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

ject  to  dollars.  The  priest  becomes  a  form  ;  the 
attorney  a  statute-book ;  the  mechanic  a  ma 
chine  ;  the  sailor  a  rope  of  the  ship.1 

In  this  distribution  of  functions  the  scholar  is 
the  delegated  intellect.  In  the  right  state  he  is 
Man  Thinking.  In  the  degenerate  state,  when 
the  victim  of  society,  he  tends  to  become  a  mere 
thinker,  or  still  worse,  the  parrot  of  other  men's 
thinking. 

In  this  view  of  him,  as  Man  Thinking,  the 
theory  of  his  office  is  contained.  Him  Nature 
solicits  with  all  her  placid,  all  her  monitory  pic 
tures  ;  him  the  past  instructs  ;  him  the  future  in 
vites.  Is  not  indeed  every  man  a  student,  and 
do  not  all  things  exist  for  the  student's  behoof? 
And,  finally,  is  not  the  true  scholar  the  only  true 
master  ?  But  the  old  oracle  said,  "  All  things 
have  two  handles :  beware  of  the  wrong  one." 
In  life,  too  often,  the  scholar  errs  with  mankind 
and  forfeits  his  privilege.  Let  us  see  him  in  his 
school,  and  consider  him  in  reference  to  the  main 
influences  he  receives. 

I.  The  first  in  time  and  the  first  in  impor 
tance  of  the  influences  upon  the  mind  is  that  of 
nature.  Every  day,  the  sun  ;  and,  after  sunset, 
Night  and  her  stars.  Ever  the  winds  blow;  ever 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  85 

the  grass  grows.  Every  day,  men  and  women, 
conversing  —  beholding  and  beholden.  The 
scholar  is  he  of  all  men  whom  this  spectacle 
most  engages.  He  must  settle  its  value  in  his 
mind.  What  is  nature  to  him  ?  There  is  never 
a  beginning,  there  is  never  an  end,  to  the  inex 
plicable  continuity  of  this  web  of  God,  but  always 
circular  power  returning  into  itself.1  Therein  it 
resembles  his  own  spirit,  whose  beginning,  whose 
ending,  he  never  can  find,  —  so  entire,  so  bound 
less.  Far  too  as  her  splendors  shine,  system  on 
system  shooting  like  rays,  upward,  downward, 
without  centre,  without  circumference,  —  in  the 
mass  and  in  the  particle,  Nature  hastens  to  ren 
der  account  of  herself  to  the  mind.  Classifica 
tion  begins.  To  the  young  mind  every  thing  is 
individual,  stands  by  itself.  By  and  by,  it  finds 
how  to  join  two  things  and  see  in  them  one  na 
ture  ;  then  three,  then  three  thousand ;  and  so, 
tyrannized  over  by  its  own  unifying  instinct,  it 
goes  on  tying  things  together,  diminishing  ano 
malies,  discovering  roots  running  under  ground 
whereby  contrary  and  remote  things  cohere  and 
flower  out  from  one  stem.  It  presently  learns 
that  since  the  dawn  of  history  there  has  been  a 
constant  accumulation  and  classifying  of  facts. 
But  what  is  classification  but  the  perceiving  that 


86  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

these  objects  are  not  chaotic,  and  are  not  foreign, 
but  have  a  law  which  is  also  a  law  of  the  human 
mind  ?  The  astronomer  discovers  that  geome 
try,  a  pure  abstraction  of  the  human  mind,  is  the 
measure  of  planetary  motion.  The  chemist  finds 
proportions  and  intelligible  method  throughout 
matter ;  and  science  is  nothing  but  the  finding 
of  analogy,  identity,  in  the  most  remote  parts.1 
The  ambitious  soul  sits  down  before  each  re 
fractory  fact ;  one  after  another  reduces  all  strange 
constitutions,  all  new  powers,  to  their  class  and 
their  law,  and  goes  on  forever  to  animate  the 
last  fibre  of  organization,  the  outskirts  of  nature, 
by  insight. 

Thus  to  him,  to  this  schoolboy  under  the 
bending  dome  of  day,  is  suggested  that  he  and 
it  proceed  from  one  root ;  one  is  leaf  and  one 
is  flower ;  relation,  sympathy,  stirring  in  every 
vein.  And  what  is  that  root?  Is  not  that  the 
soul  of  his  soul  ?  A  thought  too  bold  ;  a  dream 
too  wild.  Yet  when  this  spiritual  light  shall 
have  revealed  the  law  of  more  earthly  natures, 
—  when  he  has  learned  to  worship  the  soul,  and 
to  see  that  the  natural  philosophy  that  now  is, 
is  only  the  first  gropings  of  its  gigantic  hand,  he 
shall  look  forward  to  an  ever  expanding  know 
ledge  as  to  a  becoming  creator.2  He  shall  see 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  87 

that  nature  is  the  opposite  of  the  soul,  answer 
ing  to  it  part  for  part.  One  is  seal  and  one  is 
print.  Its  beauty  is  the  beauty  of  his  own  mind. 
Its  laws  are  the  laws  of  his  own  mind.  Nature 
then  becomes  to  him  the  measure  of  his  attain 
ments.  So  much  of  nature  as  he  is  ignorant  of, 
so  much  of  his  own  mind  does  he  not  yet  pos 
sess.  And,  in  fine,  the  ancient  precept,  "  Know 
thyself,"  and  the  modern  precept,  "  Study  na 
ture,"  become  at  last  one  maxim. 

II.  The  next  great  influence  into  the  spirit 
of  the   scholar  is  the  mind   of  the  Past,  —  in 
whatever  form,  whether  of  literature,  of  art,  of 
institutions,  that  mind  is  inscribed.      Books  are 
the  best  type  of  the  influence  of  the  past,  and  ^ 
perhaps  we  shall  get  at  the  truth,  — -  learn  the 
amount  of  this  influence  more  conveniently,  —        ^ 
by  considering  their  value  alone. 

The  theory  of  books  is  noble.     The  scholar 
of  the   first  age  received   into  him  the   world 
around  ;  brooded  thereon  ;  gave  it  the  new  ar-          Y     . 
rangement  of  his  own  mind,  and  uttered  it  again.  ^rA*^ 
Qi  came  into  him   life;    it  went  out  from  him 
thithTj    It  came  to  him  short-lived  actions ;  it 
Xvent  out  from  him  immortal  thoughts.     It  came 
/  to  him  business  ;  it  went  from  him  poetry.     It  «oc/»' 

I  was  dead  fact ;  now,  it  is  quick  thought.     It  can 

t^UX- 

\0-K5  pctLAiu^     ?^ 


88  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

stand,  and  it  can  go.  It  now  endures,  it  now 
flies,  it  now  inspires.  Precisely  in  proportion  to 
the  depth  of  mind  from  which  it  issued,  so  high 
does  it  soar,  so  long  does  it  sing.1 

Or,  I  might  say,  it  depends  on  how  far  the 
process  had  gone,  of  transmuting  life  into  truth. 
In  proportion  to  the  completeness  of  the  distil 
lation,  so  will  the  purity  and  imperishableness 
of  the  product  be.  But  none  is  quite  perfect. 
As  no  air-pump  can  by  any  means  make  a  per 
fect  vacuum,  so  neither  can  any  artist  entirely 
exclude  the  conventional,  the  local,  the  perish 
able  from  his  book,  or  write  a  book  of  pure 
thought,  that  shall  be  as  efficient,  in  all  respects, 
to  a  remote  posterity,  as  to  contemporaries,  or 
rather  to  the  second  age.  [  Each  age,  it  is  found, 
must  write  its^Jwn  books  ;  or  rather,  each  gen 
eration  for  the  next  succeeding.  The  books  of 
an  older  period  will  not  fit  this. 

Yet  hence  arises  a  grave  mischief.  The  sa- 
credness  which  attaches  to  the  act  of  creation, 
the  act  of  thought,  is  transferred  to  the  record. 
The  poet  chanting  was  felt  to  be  a  divine  man  : 
henceforth  the  chant  is  divine  also.  The  writer 
was  a  just  and  wise  spirit :  henceforward  it  is 
settled  the  book  is  perfect;  as  love  of  the  hero 
corrupts  into  worship  of  his  statue.  Instantly 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  89 

the   book   becomes   noxious :    the    guide    is    a 
tyrant.     The  sluggish  and  perverted  mind  of  ifrf^ 
the  multitude,  slow  to  open  to  the  incursions 
of  Reason,  having  once  so  opened,  having  once 
received  this  book,  stands  upon  it,  and  makes 
an  outcry  if  it  is  disparaged.     Colleges  are  built 
on  it.     Books  are  written  on  it  by  thinkers,  not    V>°* 
by  Man  Thinking;  by  men  of  talent,  that  is,  ^  n: 

who  start  wrong,  who  set  out  from  accepted 
dogmas,  not  from  their  own  sight  of  principles. 
Meek  young  men  grow  up  in  libraries,  believing 
it  their  duty  to  accept  the  views  which  Cicero, 
which  Locke,  which  Bacon,  have  given  ;  forget 
ful  that  Cicero,  Locke,  and  Bacon  were  only 
young  men  in  libraries  when  they  wrote  these 
books.1 

Hence,  instead  of  Man  Thinking,  we  have 
the  bookworm.  Hence  the  book-learned  class, 
who  value  books,  as  such  ;  not  as  related  to 
nature  and  the  human  constitution,  but  as  mak 
ing  a  sort  of  Third  Estate  with  the  world  and 
the  soul.  Hence  the  restorers  of  readings,  the 
emendators,  the  bibliomaniacs  of  all  degrees. 

Books  are  the  best  of  things,  well  used;  abused, 
among  the  worst.  What  is  the  right  use  ?  What 
is  the  one  end  which  all  means  go  to  effect? 
They  are  for  nothing  but  to  inspire.  I  had  bet- 


90  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

ter  never  see  a  book  than  to  be  warped  by  its 
attraction  clean  out  of  my  own  orbit,  and  made 
a  satellite  instead  of  a  system.  The  one  thing 
in  the  world,  of  value,  is  the  active  soul.  This 
every  man  is  entitled  to  ;  this  every  man  con 
tains  within  him,  although  in  almost  all  men 
obstructed  and  as  yet  unborn.  The  soul  active 
sees  absolute  truth  and  utters  truth,  or  creates. 
In  this  action  it  is  genius ;  not  the  privilege  of 
here  and  there  a  favorite,  but  the  sound  estate 
of  every  man.  In  its  essence  it  is  progressive. 
The  book,  the  college,  the  school  of  art,  the 
institution  of  any  kind,  stop  with  some  past 
utterance  of  genius.  This  is  good,  say  they,  — 
let  us  hold  by  this.  They  pin  me  down.  They 
look  backward  and  not  forward.  But  genius 
looks  forward :  the  eyes  of  man  are  set  in  his 
forehead,  not  in  his  hindhead :  man  hopes :  gen 
ius  creates.  Whatever  talents  may  be,  if  the 
man  create  not,  the  pure  efflux  of  the  Deity  is 
not  his  ;  —  cinders  and  smoke  there  may  be,  but 
not  yet  flame.  There  are  creative  manners,  there 
are  creative  actions,  and  creative  words  ;  man 
ners,  actions,  words,  that  is,  indicative  of  no  cus 
tom  or  authority,  but  springing  spontaneous 
from  the  mind's  own  sense  of  good  and  fair. 
On  the  other  part,  instead  of  being  its  own 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  91 

seer,  let  it  receive  from  another  mind  its  truth, 
though  it  were  in  torrents  of  light,  without 
periods  of  solitude,  inquest,  and  self-recovery, 
and  a  fatal  disservice  is  done.1  Genius  is  always 
sufficiently  the  enemy  of  genius  by  over-influ 
ence.  The  literature  of  every  nation  bears  me 
witness.  The  English  dramatic  poets  have  Shak-  ^  c! 
spearized  now  for  two  hundred  years. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  right  way  of  reading,  r^.,  » 
so  it  be  sternly  subordinated.  Man  Thinking 
must  not  be  subdued  by  his  instruments.  Books 
are  for  the  scholar's  idle  times.  When  he  can 
read  God  directly,  the  hour  is  too  precious  to 
be  wasted  in  other  men's  transcripts  of  their 
readings.  But  when  the  intervals  of  darkness 
come,  as  come  they  must,  —  when  the  sun  is  hid 
and  the  stars  withdraw  their  shining,  —  we  repair 
to  the  lamps  which  were  kindled  by  their  ray, 
to  guide  our  steps  to  the  East  again,  where  the 
dawn  is.  We  hear,  that  we  may  speak.  The 
Arabian  proverb  says,  "  A  fig  tree,  looking  on 
a  fig  tree,  becometh  fruitful." 

It  is  remarkable,  the  character  of  the  pleasure 
we  derive  from  the  best  books.  They  impress 
us  with  the  conviction  that  one  nature  wrote  and 
the  same  reads.  We  read  the  verses  of  one  of 
the  great  English  poets,  of  Chaucer,  of  Marvell, 


92  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

of  Dryden,  with  the  most  modern  joy,  —  with 
a  pleasure,  I  mean,  which  is  in  great  part  caused 
by  the  abstraction  of  all  time  from  their  verses. 
There  is  some  awe  mixed  with  the  joy  of  our 
surprise,  when  this  poet,  who  lived  in  some  past 
world,  two  or  three  hundred  years  ago,  says  that 
which  lies  close  to  my  own  soul,  that  which  I 
also  had  well-nigh  thought  and  said.  But  for  the 
evidence  thence  afforded  to  the  philosophical 
doctrine  of  the  identity  of  all  minds,  we  should 
suppose  some  preestablished  harmony,  some 
foresight  of  souls  that  were  to  be,  and  some  pre 
paration  of  stores  for  their  future  wants,  like  the 
fact  observed  in  insects,  who  lay  up  food  before 
death  for  the  young  grub  they  shall  never  see. 
I  would  not  be  hurried  by  any  love  of  system, 
by  any  exaggeration  of  instincts,  to  underrate 
the  Book.  We  all  know,  that  as  the  human 
body  can  be  nourished  on  any  food,  though  it 
were  boiled  grass  and  the  broth  of  shoes,  so  the 
human  mind  can  be  fed  by  any  knowledge.  And 
great  and  heroic  men  have  existed  who  had  al 
most  no  other  information  than  by  the  printed 
page.  I  only  would  say  that  it  needs  a  strong 
head  to  bear  that  diet.  One  must  be  an  inventor 
to  read  well.  As  the  proverb  says,  "  He  that 
would  bring  home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  must 


THE  AMERICAN   SCHOLAR  93 

carry  out  the  wealth  of  the  Indies.'*  There  is 
then  creative  reading  as  well  as  creative  writing. 
When  the  mind  is  braced  by  labor  and  inven 
tion,  the  page  of  whatever  book  we  read  becomes 
luminous  with  manifold  allusion.  Every  sentence 
is  doubly  significant,  and  the  sense  of  our  author 
is  as  broad  as  the  world.  We  then  see,  what  is 
always  true,  that  as  the  seer's  hour  of  vision  is 
short  and  rare  among  heavy  days  and  months, 
so  is  its  record,  perchance,  the  least  part  of  his 
volume.  The  discerning  will  read,  in  his  Plato 
or  Shakspeare,  only  that  least  part,  —  only  the 
authentic  utterances  of  the  oracle ;  —  all  the  rest 
he  rejects,  were  it  never  so  many  times  Plato's 
and  Shakspeare's.1 

Of  course  there  is  a  portion  of  reading  quite 
indispensable  to  a  wise  man.  History  and  exact 
science  he  must  learn  by  laborious  reading.  Col 
leges,  in  like  manner,  have  their  indispensable 
office,  —  to  teach  elements.  But  they  can  only 
highly  serve  us  when  they  aim  not  to  drill,  but 
to  create  ;  when  they  gather  from  far  every  ray 
of  various  genius  to  their  hospitable  halls,  and 
by  the  concentrated  fires,  set  the  hearts  of  their 
youth  on  flame.  Thought  and  knowledge  are 
natures  in  which  apparatus  and  pretension  avail 
nothing.  Gowns  and  pecuniary  foundations, 


94  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

though  of  towns  of  gold,  can  never  countervail 
the  least  sentence  or  syllable  of  wit.  Forget 
this,  and  our  American  colleges  will  recede  in 
their  public  importance,  whilst  they  grow  richer 
every  year. 

III.  There  goes  in  the  world  a  notion  that 
the  scholar  should  be  a  recluse,  a  valetudinarian, 
—  as  unfit  for  any  handiwork  or  public  labor  as 
a  penknife  for  an  axe.  The  so-called  "  practical 
men  "  sneer  at  speculative  men,  as  if,  because 
they  speculate  or  see,  they  could  do  nothing.  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  the  clergy,  —  who  are 
always,  more  universally  than  any  other  class,  the 
scholars  of  their  day,  —  are  addressed  as  women; 
that  the  rough,  spontaneous  conversation  of  men 
they  do  not  hear,  but  only  a  mincing  and  diluted 
speech.  They  are  often  virtually  disfranchised  ; 
and  indeed  there  are  advocates  for  their  celibacy. 
As  far  as  this  is  true  of  the  studious  classes,  it 
is  not  just  and  wise.  Action  is  with  the  scholar 
subordinate,  but  it  is  essential.  Without  it  he 
is  not  yet  man.  Without  it  thought  can  never 
ripen  into  truth.  Whilst  the  world  hangs  be 
fore  the  eye  as  a  cloud  of  beauty,  we  cannot 
even  see  its  beauty.  Inaction  is  cowardice,  but 
there  can  be  no  scholar  without  the  heroic 
mind.  The  preamble  of  thought,  the  transition 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  95 

through  which  it  passes  from  the  unconscious 
to  the  conscious,  is  action.  Only  so  much  do 
I  know,  as  I  have  lived.  Instantly  we  know 
whose  words  are  loaded  with  life,  and  whose 
not.1 

The  world,  —  this  shadow  of  the  soul,  or  other 
me^  —  lies  wide  around.2  Its  attractions  are  the 
keys  which  unlock  my  thoughts  and  make  me 
acquainted  with  myself.  I  run  eagerly  into  this 
resounding  tumult.  I  grasp  the  hands  of  those 
next  me,  and  take  my  place  in  the  ring  to  suffer 
and  to  work,  taught  by  an  instinct  that  so  shall 
the  dumb  abyss  be  vocal  with  speech.  I  pierce 
its  order  ;  I  dissipate  its  fear  ;  I  dispose  of  it 
within  the  circuit  of  my  expanding  life.  So 
much  only  of  life  as  I  know  by  experience,  so 
much  of  the  wilderness  have  I  vanquished  and 
planted,  or  so  far  have  I  extended  my  being, 
my  dominion.  I  do  not  see  how  any  man  can 
afford,  for  the  sake  of  his  nerves  and  his  nap, 
to  spare  any  action  in  which  he  can  partake. 
It  is  pearls  and  rubies  to  his  discourse.  Drudg 
ery,  calamity,  exasperation,  want,  are  instructors 
in  eloquence  and  wisdom.  The  true  scholar 
grudges  every  opportunity  of  action  past  by, 
as  a  loss  of  power.  It  is  the  raw  material  out 
of  which  the  intellect  moulds  her  splendid  pro- 


96  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

ducts.  A  strange  process  too,  this  by  which 
experience  is  converted  into  thought,  as  a  mul 
berry  leaf  is  converted  into  satin.  The  manu 
facture  goes  forward  at  all  hours. 

The  actions  and  events  of  our  childhood  and 
youth  are  now  matters  of  calmest  observation. 
They  lie  like  fair  pictures  in  the  air.  Not  so 
with  our  recent  actions,  —  with  the  business 
which  we  now  have  in  hand.  On  this  we  are 
quite  unable  to  speculate.  Our  affections  as  yet 
circulate  through  it.  We  no  more  feel  or  know 
it  than  we  feel  the  feet,  or  the  hand,  or  the  brain 
of  our  body.  The  new  deed  is  yet  a  part  of 
life,  —  remains  for  a  time  immersed  in  our  un 
conscious  life.  In  some  contemplative  hour  it 
detaches  itself  from  the  life  like  a  ripe  fruit, 
to  become  a  thought  of  the  mind.  Instantly 
it  is  raised,  transfigured  ;  the  corruptible  has  put 
on  incorruption.  Henceforth  it  is  an  object  of 
beauty,  however  base  its  origin  and  neighbor 
hood.  Observe  too  the  impossibility  of  ante 
dating  this  act.  In  its  grub  state,  it  cannot  fly, 
it  cannot  shine,  it  is  a  dull  grub.  But  suddenly, 
without  observation,  the  selfsame  thing  unfurls 
beautiful  wings,  and  is  an  angel  of  wisdom.  So 
is  there  no  fact,  no  event,  in  our  private  his 
tory,  which  shall  not,  sooner  or  later,  lose  its 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  97 

adhesive,  inert  form,  and  astonish  us  by  soar 
ing  from  our  body  into  the  empyrean.  Cradle 
and  infancy,  school  and  playground,  the  fear  of 
boys,  and  dogs,  and  ferules,  the  love  of  little 
maids  and  berries,  and  many  another  fact  that 
once  filled  the  whole  sky,  are  gone  already  ; 
friend  and  relative,  profession  and  party,  town 
and  country,  nation  and  world,  must  also  soar 
and  sing. 

Of  course,  he  who  has  put  forth  his  total 
strength  in  fit  actions  has  the  richest  return  of 
wisdom.  I  will  not  shut  myself  out  of  this  globe 
of  action,  and  transplant  an  oak  into  a  flower 
pot,  there  to  hunger  and  pine  ;  nor  trust  the 
revenue  of  some  single  faculty,  and  exhaust  one 
vein  of  thought,  much  like  those  Savoyards, 
who,  getting  their  livelihood  by  carving  shep 
herds,  shepherdesses,  and  smoking  Dutchmen, 
for  all  Europe,  went  out  one  day  to  the  moun 
tain  to  find  stock,  and  discovered  that  they  had 
whittled  up  the  last  of  their  pine  trees.  Authors 
we  have,  in  numbers,  who  have  written  out  their 
vein,  and  who,  moved  by  a  commendable  pru 
dence,  sail  for  Greece  or  Palestine,  follow  the 
trapper  into  the  prairie,  or  ramble  round  Algiers, 
to  replenish  their  merchantable  stock. 

If  it  were  only  for  a  vocabulary,  the  scholar 


98  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

would  be  covetous  of  action.  Life  is  our  diction 
ary.  Years  are  well  spent  in  country  labors ;  in 
town ;  in  the  insight  into  trades  and  manufac 
tures  ;  in  frank  intercourse  with  many  men  and 
women  ;  in  science ;  in  art ;  to  the  one  end  of 
mastering  in  all  their  facts  a  language  by  which 
to  illustrate  and  embody  our  perceptions.  I  learn 
immediately  from  any  speaker  how  much  he  has 
already  lived,  through  the  poverty  or  the  splen 
dor  of  his  speech.  Life  lies  behind  us  as  the 
quarry  from  whence  we  get  tiles  and  copestones 
for  the  masonry  of  to-day.  This  is  the  way  to 
learn  grammar.  Colleges  and  books  only  copy 
the  language  which  the  field  and  the  work-yard 
made.1 

But  the  final  value  of  action,  like  that  of 
books,  and  better  than  books,  is  that  it  is  a  re 
source.  That  great  principle  of  Undulation  in 
nature,  that  shows  itself  in  the  inspiring  and 
expiring  of  the  breath ;  in  desire  and  satiety  ;  in 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea  ;  in  day  and  night ;  in 
heat  and  cold  ;  and,  as  yet  more  deeply  ingrained 
in  every  atom  and  every  fluid,  is  known  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Polarity,  —  these  "fits  of 
easy  transmission  and  reflection,"  as  Newton 
called  them,  are  the  law  of  nature  because  they 
are  the  law  of  spirit. 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  99 

The  mind  now  thinks,  now  acts,  and  each  fit 
reproduces  the  other.  When  the  artist  has  ex 
hausted  his  materials,  when  the  fancy  no  longer 
paints,  when  thoughts  are  no  longer  appre 
hended  and  books  are  a  weariness,  —  he  has 
always  the  resource  to  live.  Character  is  higher 
than  intellect.  Thinking  is  the  function.  Liv 
ing  is  the  functionary.  The  stream  retreats  to 
its  source.  A  great  soul  will  be  strong  to  live, 
as  well  as  strong  to  think.  Does  he  lack  organ 
or  medium  to  impart  his  truths  ?  He  can  still 
fall  back  on  this  elemental  force  of  living  them. 
This  is  a  total  act.  Thinking  is  a  partial  act. 
Let  the  grandeur  of  justice  shine  in  his  affairs. 
Let  the  beauty  of  affection  cheer  his  lowly  roof. 
Those  "  far  from  fame/'  who  dwell  and  act  with 
him,  will  feel  the  force  of  his  constitution  in  the 
doings  and  passages  of  the  day  better  than  it 
can  be  measured  by  any  public  and  designed 
display.  Time  shall  teach  him  that  the  scholar 
loses  no  hour  which  the  man  lives.  Herein  he 
unfolds  the  sacred  germ  of  his  instinct,  screened 
from  influence.  What  is  lost  in  seemliness  is 
gained  in  strength.  Not  out  of  those  on  whom 
systems  of  education  have  exhausted  their  cul 
ture,  comes  the  helpful  giant  to  destroy  the  old 
or  to  build  the  new,  but  out  of  unhandselled 


ioo         THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

savage  nature  ;  out  of  terrible  Druids  and  Ber 
serkers  come  at  last  Alfred  and  Shakspeare. 

I  hear  therefore  with  joy  whatever  is  begin 
ning  to  be  said  of  the  dignity  and  necessity  of 
labor  to  every  citizen.  There  is  virtue  yet  in 
the  hoe  and  the  spade,  for  learned  as  well  as 
for  unlearned  hands.  And  labor  is  everywhere 
welcome;  always  we  are  invited  to  work;  only 
be  this  limitation  observed,  that  a  man  shall 
not  for  the  sake  of  wider  activity  sacrifice  any 
opinion  to  the  popular  judgments  and  modes 
of  action. 

I  have  now  spoken  of  the  education  of  the 
scholar  by  nature,  by  books,  and  by  action.  It 
remains  to  say  somewhat  of  his  duties. 

They  are  such  as  become  Man  Thinking. 
They  may  all  be  comprised  in  self-trust.  The 
office  of  the  scholar  is  to  cheer,  to  raise,  and 
to  guide  men  by  showing  them  facts  amidst 
appearances.  He  plies  the  slow,  unhonored, 
and  unpaid  task  of  observation.  Flamsteed  and 
Herschel,  in  their  glazed  observatories,  may  cat 
alogue  the  stars  with  the  praise  of  all  men,  and 
the  results  being  splendid  and  useful,  honor  is 
sure.  But  he,  in  his  private  observatory,  cata 
loguing  obscure  and  nebulous  stars  of*  the  hu- 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR          101 

man  mind,  which  as  yet  no  man  has  thought 
of  as  such,  —  watching  days  and  months  some 
times  for  a  few  facts  ;  correcting  still  his  old  re 
cords  ;  —  must  relinquish  display  and  immediate 
fame.  In  the  long  period  of  his  preparation  he 
must  betray  often  an  ignorance  and  shiftlessness 
in  popular  arts,  incurring  the  disdain  of  the  able 
who  shoulder  him  aside.  Long  he  must  stam 
mer  in  his  speech;  often  forego  the  living  for 
the  dead.  Worse  yet,  he  must  accept  —  how 
often  !  —  poverty  and  solitude.  For  the  ease 
and  pleasure  of  treading  the  old  road,  accepting 
the  fashions,  the  education,  the  religion  of  soci 
ety,  he  takes  the  cross  of  making  his  own,  and, 
of  course,  the  self-accusation,  the  faint  heart,  the 
frequent  uncertainty  and  loss  of  time,  which  are 
the  nettles  and  tangling  vines  in  the  way  of  the 
self-relying  and  self-directed ;  and  the  state  of 
virtual  hostility  in  which  he  seems  to  stand  'to 
society,  and  especially  to  educated  society.  For 
all  this  loss  and  scorn,  what  offset  ?  He  is  to 
find  consolation  in  exercising  the  highest  func 
tions  of  human  nature.  He  is  one  who  raises 
himself  from  private  considerations  and  breathes 
and  lives  o-n  public  and  illustrious  thoughts. 
He  is  the  world's  eye.  He  is  the  world's  heart. 
He  is  to  resist  the  vulgar  prosperity  that  retro- 


102          THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

grades  ever  to  barbarism,  by  preserving  and 
communicating  heroic  sentiments,  noble  bio 
graphies,  melodious  verse,  and  the  conclusions 
of  history.  Whatsoever  oracles  the  human 
heart,  in  all  emergencies,  in  all  solemn  hours, 
has  uttered  as  its  commentary  on  the  world  of 
actions, —  these  he  shall  receive  and  impart. 
And  whatsoever  new  verdict  Reason  from  her 
inviolable  seat  pronounces  on  the  passing  men 
and  events  of  to-day, —  this  he  shall  hear  and 
promulgate. 

These  being  his  functions,  it  becomes  him  to 
feel  all  confidence  in  himself,  and  to  defer  never 
to  the  popular  cry.  He  and  he  only  knows 
the  world.  The  world  of  any  moment  is  the 
merest  appearance.  Some  great  decorum,  some 
fetish  of  a  government,  some  ephemeral  trade, 
or  war,  or  man,  is  cried  up  by  half  mankind  and 
cried  down  by  the  other  half,  as  if  all  depended 
on  this  particular  up  or  down.  The  odds  are 
that  the  whole  question  is  not  worth  the  poorest 
thought  which  the  scholar  has  lost  in  listening 
to  the  controversy.  Let  him  not  quit  his  belief 
that  a  popgun  is  a  popgun,  though  the  ancient 
and  honorable  of  the  earth  affirm  it  to  be  the 
crack  of  doom.  In  silence,  in  steadiness,  in 
severe  abstraction,  let  him  hold  by  himself;  add 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  103 

observation  to  observation,  patient  of  neglect, 
patient  of  reproach,  and  bide  his  own  time,  — 
happy  enough  if  he  can  satisfy  himself  alone  that 
this  day  he  has  seen  something  truly.  Success 
treads  on  every  right  step.  For  the  instinct  is 
sure,  that  prompts  him  to  tell  his  brother  what 
he  thinks.  He  then  learns  that  in  going  down 
into  the  secrets  of  his  own  mind  he  has  de 
scended  into  the  secrets  of  all  minds.  He  learns 
that  he  who  has  mastered  any  law  in  his  private 
thoughts,  is  master  to  that  extent  of  all  men 
whose  language  he  speaks,  and  of  all  into  whose 
language  his  own  can  be  translated.1  The  poet, 
in  utter  solitude  remembering  his  spontaneous 
thoughts  and  recording  them,  is  found  to  have 
recorded  that  which  men  in  crowded  cities  find 
true  for  them  also.  The  orator  distrusts  at  first 
the  fitness  of  his  frank  confessions,  his  want  of 
knowledge  of  the  persons  he  addresses,  until  he 
finds  that  he  is  the  complement  of  his  hear 
ers  ; —  that  they  drink  his  words  because  he 
fulfils  for  them  their  own  nature;  the  deeper  he 
dives  into  his  privatest,  secretest  presentiment, 
to  his  wonder  he  finds  this  is  the  most  accept 
able,  most  public,  and  universally  true.  The 
people  delight  in  it ;  the  better  part  of  every 
man  feels,  This  is  my  music ;  this  is  myself. 


104  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

In  self-trust  all  the  virtues  are  comprehended. 
Free  should  the  scholar  be,  —  free  and  brave. 
Free  even  to  the  definition  of  freedom,  "without 
any  hindrance  that  does  not  arise  out  of  his  own 
constitution."  Brave ;  for  fear  is  a  thing  which 
a  scholar  by  his  very  function  puts  behind  him. 
Fear  always  springs  from  ignorance.  It  is  a 
shame  to  him  if  his  tranquillity,  amid  dangerous 
times,  arise  from  the  presumption  that  like  chil 
dren  and  women  his  is  a  protected  class ;  or  if 
he  seek  a  temporary  peace  by  the  diversion  of 
his  thoughts  from  politics  or  vexed  questions, 
hiding  his  head  like  an  ostrich  in  the  flowering 
bushes,  peeping  into  microscopes,  and  turning 
rhymes,  as  a  boy  whistles  to  keep  his  courage 
up.  So  is  the  danger  a  danger  still ;  so  is  the 
fear  worse.  Manlike  let  him  turn  and  face  it. 
Let  him  look  into  its  eye  and  search  its  nature, 
inspect  its  origin,  —  see  the  whelping  of  this 
lion,  —  which  lies  no  great  way  back;  he  will 
then  find  in  himself  a  perfect  comprehension  of 
its  nature  and  extent ;  he  will  have  made  his 
hands  meet  on  the  other  side,  and  can  hence 
forth  defy  it  and  pass  on  superior.  The  world 
is  his  who  can  see  through  its  pretension.  What 
deafness,  what  stone-blind  custom,  what  over 
grown  error  you  behold  is  there  only  by  suffer- 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  105 

ance,  —  by  your  sufferance.    See  it  to  be  a  lie, 
and  you  have  already  dealt  it  its  mortal  blow. 

Yes,  we  are  the  cowed,  —  we  the  trustless.  It 
is  a  mischievous  notion  that  we  are  come  lafe 
into  nature  ;  that  the  world  was  finished  a  long 
time  ago.  As  the  world  was  plastic  and  fluid  in 
the  hands  of  God,  so  it  is  ever  to  so  much  of 
his  attributes  as  we  bring  to  it.  To  ignorance 
and  sin,  it  is  flint.  They  adapt  themselves  to  it 
as  they  may ;  but  in  proportion  as  a  man  has 
any  thing  in  him  divine,  the  firmament  flows 
before  him  and  takes  his  signet  and  form.  Not 
he  is  great  who  can  alter  matter,  but  he  who  can 
alter  my  state  of  mind.  They  are  the  kings  of 
the  world  who  give  the  color  of  their  present 
thought  to  all  nature  and  all  art,  and  persuade 
men  by  the  cheerful  serenity  of  their  carrying 
the  matter,  that  this  thing  which  they  do  is  the 
apple  which  the  ages  have  desired  to  pluck,  now 
at  last  ripe,  and  inviting  nations  to  the  harvest. 
The  great  man  makes  the  great  thing.  Wher 
ever  Macdonald  sits,  there  is  the  head  of  the 
table.  Linnaeus  makes  botany  the  most  alluring 
of  studies,  and  wins  it  from  the  farmer  and  the 
herb-woman ;  Davy,  chemistry ;  and  Cuvier,  fos 
sils.  The  day  is  always  his  who  works  in  it  with 
serenity  and  great  aims.  The  unstable  estimates 


io6  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

of  men  crowd  to  him  whose  mind  is  filled  with 
a  truth,  as  the  heaped  waves  of  the  Atlantic 
follow  the  moon. 

For  this  self-trust,  the  reason  is  deeper  than 
can  be  fathomed,  —  darker  than  can  be  enlight 
ened.  I  might  not  carry  with  me  the  feeling  of 
my  audience  in  stating  my  own  belief.  But  I 
have  already  shown  the  ground  of  my  hope,  in 
adverting  to  the  doctrine  that  man  is  one.1  I 
believe  man  has  been  wronged ;  he  has  wronged 
himself.  He  has  almost  lost  the  light  that  can 
lead  him  back  to  his  prerogatives.  Men  are  be 
come  of  no  account.  Men  in  history,  men  in 
the  world  of  to-day,  are  bugs,  are  spawn,  and  are 
called  "  the  mass  "  and  "  the  herd."  In  a  century, 
in  a  millennium,  one  or  two  men ;  that  is  to  say, 
one  or  two  approximations  to  the  right  state  of 
every  man.  All  the  rest  behold  in  the  hero  or 
the  poet  their  own  green  and  crude  being,  — 
ripened  ;  yes,  and  are  content  to  be  less,  so  that 
may  attain  to  its  full  stature.  What  a  testimony, 
full  of  grandeur,  full  of  pity,  is  borne  to  the 
demands  of  his  own  nature,  by  the  poor  clans 
man,  the  poor  partisan,  who  rejoices  in  the  glory 
of  his  chief.  The  poor  and  the  low  find  some 
amends  to  their  immense  moral  capacity,  for 
their  acquiescence  in  a  political  and  social  inferi- 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR          107 

ority.  They  are  content  to  be  brushed  like  flies 
from  the  path  of  a  great  person,  so  that  justice 
shall  be  done  by  him  to  that  common  nature 
which  it  is  the  dearest  desire  of  all  to  see  enlarged 
and  glorified.  They  sun  themselves  in  the  great 
man's  light,  and  feel  it  to  be  their  own  element. 
They  cast  the  dignity  of  man  from  their  down- 
trod  selves  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  hero,  and 
will  perish  to  add  one  drop  of  blood  to  make  that 
great  heart  beat,  those  giant  sinews  combat  and 
conquer.  He  lives  for  us,  and  we  live  in  him. 

Men,  such  as  they  are,  very  naturally  seek 
money  or  power;  and  power  because  it  is  as  good 
as  money,  —  the  "  spoils,"  so  called,  "  of  office." 
And  why  not?  for  they  aspire  to  the  highest,  and 
this,  in  their  sleep-walking,  they  dream  is  high 
est.  Wake  them  and  they  shall  quit  the  false 
good  and  leap  to  the  true,  and  leave  governments 
to  clerks  and  desks.  This  revolution  is  to  be 
wrought  by  the  gradual  domestication  of  the  idea 
of  Culture.  The  main  enterprise  of  the  world 
for  splendor,  for  extent,  is  the  upbuilding  of  a 
man.  Here  are  the  materials  strewn  along  the 
ground.  The  private  life  of  one  man  shall  be  a 
more  illustrious  monarchy,  more  formidable  to 
its  enemy,  more  sweet  and  serene  in  its  influence 
to  its  friend,  than  any  kingdom  in  history.  For 


io8  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

a  man,  rightly  viewed,  comprehendeth  the  par 
ticular  natures  of  all  men.  Each  philosopher, 
each  bard,  each  actor  has  only  done  for  me,  as  by 
a  delegate,  what  one  day  I  can  do  for  myself. 
The  books  which  once  we  valued  more  than  the 
apple  of  the  eye,  we  have  quite  exhausted.  What 
is  that  but  saying  that  we  have  come  up  with  the 
point  of  view  which  the  universal  mind  took 
through  the  eyes  of  one  scribe;  we  have  been 
that  man,  and  have  passed  on.  First,  one,  then 
another,  we  drain  all  cisterns,  and  waxing  greater 
by  all  these  supplies,  we  crave  a  better  and  more 
abundant  food.  The  man  has  never  lived  that 
can  feed  us  ever.  The  human  mind  cannot  be 
enshrined  in  a  person  who  shall  set  a  barrier  on 
any  one  side  to  this  unbounded,  unboundable 
empire.  It  is  one  central  fire,  which,  flaming  now 
out  of  the  lips  of  Etna,  lightens  the  capes  of 
Sicily,  and  now  out  of  the  throat  of  Vesuvius, 
illuminates  the  towers  and  vineyards  of  Naples. 
It  is  one  light  which  beams  out  of  a  thousand 
stars.  It  is  one  soul  which  animates  all  men.1 

But  I  have  dwelt  perhaps  tediously  upon  this 
abstraction  of  the  Scholar.  I  ought  not  to  de 
lay  longer  to  add  what  I  have  to  say  of  nearer 
reference  to  the  time  and  to  this  country. 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  109 

Historically,  there  is  thought  to  be  a  differ 
ence  in  the  ideas  which  predominate  over  suc 
cessive  epochs,  and  there  are  data  for  marking  the 
genius  of  the  Classic,  of  the  Romantic,  and  now 
of  the  Reflective  or  Philosophical  age.  With 
the  views  I  have  intimated  of  the  oneness  or  the 
identity  of  the  mind  through  all  individuals,  I  do 
not  much  dwell  on  these  differences.  In  fact,  I 
believe  each  individual  passes  through  all  three. 
The  boy  is  a  Greek ;  the  youth,  romantic ;  the 
adult,  reflective.  I  deny  not,  however,  that  a 
revolution  in  the  leading  idea  may  be  distinctly 
enough  traced. 

Our  age  is  bewailed  as  the  age  of  Introver 
sion.  Must  that  needs  be  evil  ?  We,  it  seems, 
are  critical ;  we  are  embarrassed  with  second 
thoughts ;  we  cannot  enjoy  any  thing  for  hanker 
ing  to  know  whereof  the  pleasure  consists  ;  we 
are  lined  with  eyes;  we  see  with  our  feet;  the 
time  is  infected  with  Hamlet's  unhappiness,  — 

"  Sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought." 

It  is  so  bad  then  ?  Sight  is  the  last  thing  to  be 
pitied.  Would  we  be  blind  ?  Do  we  fear  lest 
we  should  outsee  nature  and  God,  and  drink 
truth  dry?  I  look  upon  the  discontent  of  the 
literary  class  as  a  mere  announcement  of  the  fact 


no          THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

that  they  find  themselves  not  in  the  state  of 
mind  of  their  fathers,  and  regret  the  coming  state 
as  untried  ;  as  a  boy  dreads  the  water  before  he 
has  learned  that  he  can  swim.  If  there  is  any 
period  one  would  desire  to  be  born  in,  is  it  not 
the  age  of  Revolution;  when  the  old  and  the 
new  stand  side  by  side  and  admit  of  being  com 
pared  ;  when  the  energies  of  all  men  are  searched 
by  fear  and  by  hope  ;  when  the  historic  glories 
of  the  old  can  be  compensated  by  the  rich  pos 
sibilities  of  the  new  era  ?  This  time,  like  all 
times,  is  a  very  good  one,  if  we  but  know  what 
to  do  with  it. 

I  read  with  some  joy  of  the  auspicious  signs 
of  the  coming  days,  as  they  glimmer  already 
through  poetry  and  art,  through  philosophy  and 
science,  through  church  and  state. 

One  of  these  signs  is  the  fact  that  the  same 
movement  which  effected  the  elevation  of  what 
was  called  the  lowest  class  in  the  state,  assumed 
in  literature  a  very  marked  and  as  benign  an  as 
pect.  Instead  of  the  sublime  and  beautiful,  the 
near,  the  low,  the  common,  was  explored  and 
poetized.  That  which  had  been  negligently  trod 
den  under  foot  by  those  who  were  harnessing 
and  provisioning  themselves  for  long  journeys 
into  far  countries,  is  suddenly  found  to  be  richer 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  in 

than  all  foreign  parts.  The  literature  of  the 
poor,  the  feelings  of  the  child,  the  philosophy 
of  the  street,  the  meaning  of  household  life,  are 
the  topics  of  the  time.  It  is  a  great  stride.  It 
is  a  sign  —  is  it  not?  — of  new  vigor  when  the 
extremities  are  made  active,  when  currents  of 
warm  life  run  into  the  hands  and  the  feet.  I 
ask  not  for  the  great,  the  remote,  the  romantic; 
what  is  doing  in  Italy  or  Arabia;  what  is  Greek 
art,  or  Provencal  minstrelsy  ;  I  embrace  the 
common,  I  explore  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  fa 
miliar,  the  low.  Give  me  insight  into  to-day,  and 
you  may  have  the  antique  and  future  worlds. 
What  would  we  really  know  the  meaning  of? 
The  meal  in  the  firkin  ;  the  milk  in  the  pan  ; 
the  ballad  in  the  street ;  the  news  of  the  boat ; 
the  glance  of  the  eye ;  the  form  and  the  gait 
of  the  body  ;  —  show  me  the  ultimate  reason  of 
these  matters  ;  show  me  the  sublime  presence 
of  the  highest  spiritual  cause  lurking,  as  always 
it  does  lurk,  in  these  suburbs  and  extremities 
of  nature ;  let  me  see  every  trifle  bristling  with 
the  polarity  that  ranges  it  instantly  on  an  eter 
nal  law  ;  and  the  shop,  the  plough,  and  the 
ledger  referred  to  the  like  cause  by  which  light 
undulates  and  poets  sing; — and  the  world  lies 
no  longer  a  dull  miscellany  and  lumber-room, 


ii2          THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

but  has  form  and  order ;  there  is  no  trifle,  there 
is  no  puzzle,  but  one  design  unites  and  animates 
the  farthest  pinnacle  and  the  lowest  trench. 

This  idea  has  inspired  the  genius  of  Gold 
smith,  Burns,  Cowper,  and,  in  a  newer  time,  of 
Goethe,  Wordsworth,  and  Carlyle.  This  idea 
they  have  differently  followed  and  with  various 
success.  In  contrast  with  their  writing,  the  style 
of  Pope,  of  Johnson,  of  Gibbon,  looks  cold  and 
pedantic.  This  writing  is  blood-warm.  Man  is 
surprised  to  find  that  things  near  are  not  less 
beautiful  and  wondrous  than  things  remote.  The 
near  explains  the  far.  The  drop  is  a  small  ocean. 
A  man  is  related  to  all  nature.  This  perception 
of  the  worth  of  the  vulgar  is  fruitful  in  dis 
coveries.  Goethe,  in  this  very  thing  the  most 
modern  of  the  moderns,  has  shown  us,  as  none 
ever  did,  the  genius  of  the  ancients. 

There  is  one  man  of  genius  who  has  done 
much  for  this  philosophy  of  life,  whose  literary 
value  has  never  yet  been  rightly  estimated ;  — 
I  mean  Emanuel  Swedenborg.1  The  most  im 
aginative  of  men,  yet  writing  with  the  precision 
of  a  mathematician,  he  endeavored  to  engraft 
a  purely  philosophical  Ethics  on  the  popular 
Christianity  of  his  time.  Such  an  attempt  of 
course  must  have  difficulty  which  no  genius 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  113 

could  surmount.  But  he  saw  and  showed  the 
connection  between  nature  and  the  affections  of 
the  soul.  He  pierced  the  emblematic  or  spiritual 
character  of  the  visible,  audible,  tangible  world. 
Especially  did  his  shade  -  loving  muse  hover 
over  and  interpret  the  lower  parts  of  nature  ;  he 
showed  the  mysterious  bond  that  allies  moral 
evil  to  the  foul  material  forms,  and  has  given  in 
epical  parables  a  theory  of  insanity,  of  beasts,  of 
unclean  and  fearful  things. 

Another  sign  of  our  times,  also  marked  by  an 
analogous  political  movement,  is  the  new  im 
portance  given  to  the  single  person.  Every  thing 
that  tends  to  insulate  the  individual,  —  to  sur 
round  him  with  barriers  of  natural  respect,  so 
that  each  man  shall  feel  the  world  is  his,  and 
man  shall  treat  with  man  as  a  sovereign  state 
with  a  sovereign  state,  —  tends  to  true  union  as 
well  as  greatness.  "  I  learned,"  said  the  melan 
choly  Pestalozzi,  "  that  no  man  in  God's  wide 
earth  is  either  willing  or  able  to  help  any  other 
man."  '  Help  must  come  from  the  bosom  alone. 
The  scholar  is  that  man  who  must  take  up  into 
himself  all  the  ability  of  the  time,  all  the  con 
tributions  of  the  past,  all  the  hopes  of  the  future. 
He  must  be  an  university  of  knowledges.  If 
there  be  one  lesson  more  than  another  which 


ii4          THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

should  pierce  his  ear,  it  is,  The  world  is  no 
thing,  the  man  is  all ;  in  yourself  is  the  law  of  all 
nature,  and  you  know  not  yet  how  a  globule  of 
sap  ascends  ;  in  yourself  slumbers  the  whole  of 
Reason  ;  it  is  for  you  to  know  all ;  it  is  for  you 
to  dare  all.  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen,  this 
confidence  in  the  unsearched  might  of  man  be 
longs,  by  all  motives,  by  all  prophecy,  by  all 
preparation,  to  the  American  Scholar.  We  have 
listened  too  long  to  the  courtly  muses  of  Europe. 
The  spirit  of  the  American  freeman  is  already 
suspected  to  be  timid,  imitative,  tame.  Public 
and  private  avarice  make  the  air  we  breathe  thick 
and  fat.  The  scholar  is  decent,  indolent,  com 
plaisant.  See  already  the  tragic  consequence. 
The  mind  of  this  country,  taught  to  aim  at 
low  objects,  eats  upon  itself.  There  is  no  work 
for  any  but  the  decorous  and  the  complaisant. 
Young  men  of  the  fairest  promise,  who  begin 
life  upon  our  shores,  inflated  by  the  mountain 
winds,  shined  upon  by  all  the  stars  of  God,  find 
the  earth  below  not  in  unison  with  these,  but  are 
hindered  from  action  by  the  disgust  which  the 
principles  on  which  business  is  managed  inspire, 
and  turn  drudges,  or  die  of  disgust,  some  of  them 
suicides.  What  is  the  remedy  ?  They  did  not 
yet  see,  and  thousands  of  young  men  as  hopeful 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  115 

now  crowding  to  the  barriers  for  the  career  do 
not  yet  see,  that  if  the  single  man  plant  himself 
indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and  there  abide,  the 
huge  world  will  come  round  to  him.1  Patience, 
—  patience  ;  with  the  shades  of  all  the  good  and 
great  for  company ;  and  for  solace  the  perspec 
tive  of  your  own  infinite  life ;  and  for  work  the 
study  and  the  communication  of  principles,  the 
making  those  instincts  prevalent,  the  conversion 
of  the  world.  Is  it  not  the  chief  disgrace  in  the 
world,  not  to  be  an  unit ;  —  not  to  be  reckoned 
one  character  ; —  not  to  yield  that  peculiar  fruit 
which  each  man  was  created  to  bear,  but  to  be 
reckoned  in  the  gross,  in  the  hundred,  or  the 
thousand,  of  the  party,  the  section,  to  which  we 
belong.;  and  our  opinion  predicted  geographi 
cally,  as  the  north,  or  the  south  ?  Not  so,  bro 
thers  and  friends  —  please  God,  ours  shall  not  be 
so.  We  will  walk  on  our  own  feet;  we  will  work 
with  our  own  hands  ;  we  will  speak  our  own 
minds.  The  study  of  letters  shall  be  no  longer 
a  name  for  pity,  for  doubt,  and  for  sensual  indul 
gence.  The  dread  of  man  and  the  love  of  man 
shall  be  a  wall  of  defence  and  a  wreath  of  joy 
around  all.  A  nation  of  men  will  for  the  first 
time  exist,  because  each  believes  himself  inspired 
by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires  all  men. 


AN   ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE    SENIOR    CLASS    IN    DIVINITY 

COLLEGE,   CAMBRIDGE,  SUNDAY   EVENING, 

JULY   15,   1838. 


ADDRESS 

IN  this  refulgent  summer,  it  has  been  a  luxury 
to  draw  the  breath  of  life.  The  grass  grows, 
the  buds  burst,  the  meadow  is  spotted  with  fire 
and  gold  in  the  tint  of  flowers.  The  air  is  full 
of  birds,  and  sweet  with  the  breath  of  the  pine, 
the  balm-of-Gilead,  and  the  new  hay.  Night 
brings  no  gloom  to  the  heart  with  its  welcome 
shade.  Through  the  transparent  darkness  the 
stars  pour  their  almost  spiritual  rays.  Man 
under  them  seems  a  young  child,  and  his  huge 
globe  a  toy.  The  cool  night  bathes  the  world 
as  with  a  river,  and  prepares  his  eyes  again  for 
the  crimson  dawn.  The  mystery  of  nature  was 
never  displayed  more  happily.  The  corn  and 
the  wine  have  been  freely  dealt  to  all  creatures, 
and  the  never-broken  silence  with  which  the 
old  bounty  goes  forward  has  not  yielded  yet 
one  word  of  explanation.  One  is  constrained 
to  respect  the  perfection  of  this  world  in  which 
our  senses  converse.  How  wide  ;  how  rich  ; 
what  invitation  from  every  property  it  gives  to 
every  faculty  of  man  !  In  its  fruitful  soils  ;  in 
its  navigable  sea ;  in  its  mountains  of  metal  and 
stone;  in  its  forests  of  all  woods;  in  its  animals; 


120  ADDRESS 

in  its  chemical  ingredients  ;  in  the  powers  and 
path  of  light,  heat,  attraction  and  life,  it  is  well 
worth  the  pith  and  heart  of  great  men  to  sub 
due  and  enjoy  it.  The  planters,  the  mechanics, 
the  inventors,  the  astronomers,  the  builders  of 
cities,  and  the  captains,  history  delights  to  honor. 

But  when  the  mind  opens  and  reveals  the 
laws  which  traverse  the  universe  and  make 
things  what  they  are,  then  shrinks  the  great 
world  at  once  into  a  mere  illustration  and  fable 
of  this  mind.  What  am  I  ?  and  What  is  ?  asks 
the  human  spirit  with  a  curiosity  new-kindled, 
but  never  to  be  quenched.  Behold  these  out 
running  laws,  which  our  imperfect  apprehen 
sion  can  see  tend  this  way  and  that,  but  not 
come  full  circle.  Behold  these  infinite  relations, 
so  like,  so  unlike  ;  many,  yet  one.  I  would 
study,  I  would  know,  I  would  admire  forever. 
These  works  of  thought  have  been  the  enter 
tainments  of  the  human  spirit  in  all  ages. 

A  more  secret,  sweet,  and  overpowering  beauty 
appears  to  man  when  his  heart  and  mind  open 
to  the  sentiment  of  virtue.  Then  he  is  instructed 
in  what  is  above  him.  |He  learns  that  his  being 
is  without  bound  ;  that  to  the  good,  to  the  per 
fect,  he  is  born,  low  as  he  now  lies  in  evil  and 
weakness7  That  which  he  venerates  is  still  his 


ADDRESS  121 

own,  though  he  has  not  realized  it  yet.  He 
ought.  He  knows  the  sense  of  that  grand  word, 
though  his  analysis  fails  to  render  account  of 
it.  When  in  innocency  or  when  by  intellectual 
perception  he  attains  to  say,  —  "I  love  the 
Right ;  Truth  is  beautiful  within  and  without 
for  evermore.  Virtue,  I  am  thine ;  save  me  ;  use 
me  ;  thee  will  I  serve,  day  and  night,  in  great, 
in  small,  that  I  may  be  not  virtuous,  but  vir 
tue  ;  "  —  then  is  the  end  of  the  creation  an 
swered,  and  God  is  well  pleased. 

The  sentiment  of  virtue  is  a  reverence  and  ^ 
delight  in  the  presence  of  certain  divine  laws. 
It  perceives  that  this  homely  game  of  life  we 
play,  covers,  under  what  seem  foolish  details, 
principles  that  astonish.  The  child  amidst  his 
baubles  is  learning  the  action  of  light,  motion, 
gravity,  muscular  force ;  and  in  the  game  of 
human  life,  love,  fear,  justice,  appetite,  man, 
and  God,  interact.  These  laws  refuse  to  be  ad 
equately  stated.  They  will  not  be  written  out 
on  paper,  or  spoken  by  the  tongue.  They 
elude  our  persevering  thought ;  yet  we  read 
them  hourly  in  each  other's  faces,  in  each  other's 
actions,  in  our  own  remorse.1  The  moral  traits 
which  are  all  globed  into  every  virtuous  act  and 
thought,  —  in  speech  we  must  sever,  and  de- 


122  ADDRESS 

scribe  or  suggest  by  painful  enumeration  of 
many  particulars.  Yet,  as  this  sentiment  is  the 
essence  of  all  religion,  let  me  guide  yoiJr  eye 
to  the  precise  objects  of  the  sentiment,  by  an 
enumeration  of  some  of  those  classes  of  facts 
in  which  this  element  is  conspicuous. 

The  intuition  of  the  moral  sentiment  is  an 
insight  of  the  perfection  of  the  laws  of  the  soul. 
These  laws  execute  themselves.  They  are  out 
of  time,  out  of  space,  and  not  subject  to  circum 
stance.  Thus  in  the  soul  of  man  there  is  a  jus 
tice  whose  retributions  are  instant  and  entire. 
He  who  does  a  good  deed  is  instantly  ennobled. 
He  who  does  a  mean  deed  is  by  the  action  itself 
contracted.  He  who  puts  off  impurity,  thereby 
puts  on  purity.  If  a  man  is  at  heart  just,  then 
in  so  far  is  he  God  ;  the  safety  of  God,  the  im 
mortality  of  God,  the  majesty  of  God  do  enter 
into  that  man  with  justice.1  If  a  man  dissemble, 
deceive,  he  deceives  himself,  and  goes  out  of 
acquaintance  with  his  own  being.  A  man  in  the 
view  of  absolute  goodness,  adores,  with  total 
humility.  Every  step  so  downward,  is  a  step  up 
ward.  The  man  who  renounces  himself,  comes 
to  himself.2 

See  how  this  rapid  intrinsic  energy  worketh 
everywhere,  righting  wrongs,  correcting  appear- 


ADDRESS  123 

ances,  and  bringing  up  facts  to  a  harmony  with 
thoughts.  Its  operation  in  life,  though  slow  to 
the  senses,  is  at  last  as  sure  as  in  the  soul.  By 
it  a  man  is  made  the  Providence  to  himself, 
dispensing  good  to  his  goodness,  and  evil  to 
his  sin.1  Character  is  always  known.  Thefts 
never  enrich  ;  alms  never  impoverish  ;  murder 
will  speak  out  of  stone  walls.  The  least  admix 
ture  of  a  lie,  —  for  example,  the  taint  of  van 
ity,  any  attempt  to  make  a  good  impression,  a 
favorable  appearance,  —  will  instantly  vitiate  the 
effect.  But  speak  the  truth,  and  all  nature  and 
all  spirits  help  you  with  unexpected  furtherance. 
Speak  the  truth,  and  all  things  alive  or  brute 
are  vouchers,  and  the  very  roots  of  the  grass 
underground  there  do  seem  to  stir  and  move 
to  bear  you  witness.  See  again  the  perfection 
of  the  Law  as  it  applies  itself  to  the  affections, 
and  becomes  the  law  of  society.  As  we  are,  so 
we  associate.  The  good,  by  affinity,  seek  the 
good  ;  the  vile,  by  affinity,  the  vile.  Thus  of 
their  own  volition,  souls  proceed  into  heaven, 
into  hell. 

These  facts  have  always  suggested  to  man  the 
sublime  creed  that  the  world  is  not  the  product 
of  manifold  power,  but  of  one  will,  of  one  mind ; 
and  that  one  mind  is  everywhere  active,  in  each 


i24  ADDRESS 

ray  of  the  star,  in  each  wavelet  of  the  pool ;  and 
whatever  opposes  that  will  is  everywhere  balked 
and  baffled,  because  things  are  made  so,  and  not 
otherwise.  Good  is  positive.  Evil  is  merely 
privative,  not  absolute :  it  is  like  cold,  which  is 
the  privation  of  heat.  All  evil  is  so  much  death 
or  nonentity.  Benevolence  is  absolute  and  real.1 
So  much  benevolence  as  a  man  hath,  so  much 
life  hath  he.  For  all  things  proceed  out  of  this 
same  spirit,  which  is  differently  named  love,  jus 
tice,  temperance,  in  its  different  applications, 
just  as  the  ocean  receives  different  names  on  the 
several  shores  which  it  washes.  All  things  pro 
ceed  out  of  the  same  spirit,  and  all  things  con 
spire  with  it.  Whilst  a  man  seeks  good  ends,  he 
is  strong  by  the  whole  strength  of  nature.  In  so 
far  as  he  roves  from  these  ends,  he  bereaves  him 
self  of  power,  or  auxiliaries ;  his  being  shrinks 
out  of  all  remote  channels,  he  becomes  less  and 
less,  a  mote,  a  point,  until  absolute  badness  is 
absolute  death.2 

The  perception  of  this  law  of  laws  awakens  in 
the  mind  a  sentiment  which  we  call  the  religious 
sentiment,  and  which  makes  our  highest  happi 
ness.  Wonderful  is  its  power  to  charm  and  to 
command.  It  is  a  mountain  air.  It  is  the  em- 
balmer  of  the  world.  It  is  myrrh  and  storax, 


ADDRESS  125 

and  chlorine  and  rosemary.  It  makes  the  sky 
and  the  hills  sublime,  and  the  silent  song  of  the 
stars  is  it.  By  it  is  the  universe  made  safe  and 
habitable,  not  by  science  or  power.1  Thought 
may  work  cold  and  intransitive  in  things,  and 
find  no  end  or  unity ;  but  the  dawn  of  the  sen 
timent  of  virtue  on  the  heart,  gives  and  is  the 
assurance  that  Law  is  sovereign  over  all  natures; 
and  the  worlds,  time,  space,  eternity,  do  seem  to 
break  out  into  joy.2 

This  sentiment  is  divine  and  deifying.  It  is 
the  beatitude  of  man.  It  makes  him  illimitable. 
Through  it,  the  soul  first  knows  itself.lit  cor 
rects  the  capital  mistake  of  the  infant  man,  who 
seeks  to  be  great  by  following  the  great,  and 
hopes  to  derive  advantages  from  another ',  —  by 
showing  the  fountain  of  all  good  to  be  in  him 
self,  and  that  he,  equally  with  every  man,  is  an 
inlet  into  the  deeps  of  Reason!  When  he  says, 
"I  ought;"  when  love  warms  him;  when  he 
chooses,  warned  from  on  high,  the  good  and 
great  deed;  then,  deep  melodies  wander  through 
his  soul  from  Supreme  Wisdom. — Then  he  can 
worship,  and  be  enlarged  by  his  worship  ;  for  he 
can  never  go  behind  this  sentiment.  In  the  sub- 
tlimest  flights  of  the  soul,  rectitude  is  never  sur 
mounted,  love  is  never  outgrown. 


126  ADDRESS 

This  sentiment  lies  at  the  foundation  of  soci 
ety.,  and  successively  creates  all  forms  of  wor 
ship.  The  principle  of  veneration  never  dies 
out.  Man  fallen  into  superstition,  into  sensual 
ity,  is  never  quite  without  the  visions  of  the 
moral  sentiment.  In  like  manner,  all  the  ex 
pressions  of  this  sentiment  are  sacred  and  per 
manent  in  proportion  to  their  purity.  The  ex 
pressions  of  this  sentiment  affect  us  more  than 
all  other  compositions.  The  sentences  of  the 
oldest  time,  which  ejaculate  this  piety,  are  still 
fresh  and  fragrant.  This  thought  dwelled  al 
ways  deepest  in  the  minds  of  men  in  the  devout 
and  contemplative  East;  not  alone  in  Palestine, 
where  it  reached  its  purest  expression,  but  in 
Egypt,  in  Persia,  in  India,  in  China.  Europe 
has  always  owed  to  oriental  genius  its  divine 
impulses.  What  these  holy  bards  said,  all  sane 
men  found  agreeable  and  true.1  And  the  unique 
impression  of  Jesus  upon  mankind,  whose  name 
is  not  so  much  written  as  ploughed  into  the  his 
tory  of  this  world,  is  proof  of  the  subtle  virtue 
of  this  infusion. 

Meantime,  whilst  the  doors  of  the  temple 
stand  open,  night  and  day,  before  every  man, 
and  the  oracles  of  this  truth  cease  never,  it  is' 
guarded  by  one  stern  condition ;  this,  namely ; 


ADDRESS  127 

it  is  an  intuition.  It  cannot  be  received  at  sec 
ond  hand.  Truly  speaking,  it  is  not  instruction, 
but  provocation,  that  I  can  receive  from  another 
soul.  What  he  announces,  I  must  find  true  in 
me,  or  reject;  and  on  his  word,  or  as  his  second, 
be  he  who  he  may,  I  can  accept  nothing.  On 
the  contrary,  the  absence  of  this  primary  faith  is 
the  presence  of  degradation.  As  is  the  flood,  so 
is  the  ebb.  Let  this  faith  depart,  and  the  very 
words  it  spake  and  the  things  it  made  become 
false  and  hurtful.  Then  falls  the  church,  the 
state,  art,  letters,  life.  The  doctrine  of  the  di 
vine  nature  '  being  forgotten,  a  sickness  infects 
and  dwarfs  the  constitution.  Once  man  was 
all ;  now  he  is  an  appendage,  a  nuisance.  And 
because  the  indwelling  Supreme  Spirit  cannot 
wholly  be  got  rid  of,  the  doctrine  of  it  suffers  this 
perversion,  that  the  divine  nature  is  attributed 
to  one  or  two  persons,  and  denied  to  all  the  rest, 
and  denied  with  fury.  The  doctrine  of  inspira 
tion  is  lost ;  the  base  doctrine  of  the  majority  of 
voices  usurps  the  place  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
soul.  Miracles,  prophecy,  poetry,  the  ideal  life, 
the  holy  life,  exist  as  ancient  history  merely  ; 
they  are  not  in  the  belief,  nor  in  the  aspiration 
of  society  ;  but,  when  suggested,  seem  ridicu 
lous.  Life  is  comic  or  pitiful  as  soon  as  the  high 


128  ADDRESS 

ends  of  being  fade  out  of  sight,  and  man  becomes 
near-sighted,  and  can  only  attend  to  what  ad 
dresses  the  senses. 

These  general  views,  which,  whilst  they  are 
general,  none  will  contest,  find  abundant  illus 
tration  in  the  history  of  religion,  and  especially 
in  the  history  of  the  Christian  church.  In  that, 
all  of  us  have  had  our  birth  and  nurture.  The 
truth  contained  in  that,  you,  my  young  friends, 
are  now  setting  forth  to  teach.  As  the  Cultus, 
or  established  worship  of  the  civilized  world,  it 
has  great  historical  interest  for  us.  Of  its  blessed 
words,  which  have  been  the  consolation  of  hu 
manity,  you  need  not  that  I  should  speak.  I 
shall  endeavor  to  discharge  my  duty  to  you  on 
this  occasion,  by  pointing  out  two  errors  in  its 
administration,  which  daily  appear  more  gross 
from  the  point  of  view  we  have  just  now  taken. 

Jesus  Christ  belonged  to  the  true  race  of 
prophets.  He  saw  with  open  eye  the  mystery 
of  the  soul.  Drawn  by  its  severe  harmony, 
ravished  with  its  beauty,  he  lived  in  it,  and  had 
his  being  there.  Alone  in  all  history  he  esti 
mated  the  greatness  of  man.  One  man  was  true 
to  what  is  in  you  and  me.  He  saw  that  God 
incarnates  himself  in  man,  and  evermore  goes 
forth  anew  to  take  possession  of  his  World. 


ADDRESS  129 

He  said,  in  this  jubilee  of  sublime  emotion,  c  I 
am  divine.  Through  me,  God  acts  ;  through 
me,  speaks.  Would  you  see  God,  see  me ;  or 
see  thee,  when  thou  also  thinkest  as  I  now 
think/  But  what  a  distortion  did  his  doctrine 
and  memory  suffer  in  the  same,  in  the  next,  and 
the  following  ages  !  There  is  no  doctrine  of 
the  Reason  which  will  bear  to  be  taught  by  the 
Understanding.  The  understanding  caught  this 
high  chant  from  the  poet's  lips,  and  said,  in  the 
next  age,  c  This  was  Jehovah  come  down  out 
of  heaven.  I  will  kill  you,  if  you  say  he  was  a 
man/  The  idioms  of  his  language  and  the  fig 
ures  of  his  rhetoric  have  usurped  the  place  of 
his  truth  ;  and  churches  are  not  built  on  his 
principles,  but  on  his  tropes.  Christianity  be 
came  a  Mythus,  as  the  poetic  teaching  of  Greece 
and  of  Egypt,  before.  He  spoke  of  miracles; 
for  he  felt  that  man's  life  was  a  miracle,  and  all 
that  man  doth,  and  he  knew  that  this  daily 
miracle  shines  as  the  character  ascends.  But 
the  word  Miracle,  as  pronounced  by  Christian 
churches,  gives  a  false  impression  ;  it  is  Mon 
ster.  It  is  not  one  with  the  blowing  clover  and 
the  falling  rain.1 

He  felt  respect  for  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
but  no  unfit  tenderness  at  postponing  their  ini- 


130  ADDRESS 

tial  revelations  to  the  hour  and  the  man  that 
now  is  ;  to  the  eternal  revelation  in  the  heart. 
Thus  was  he  a  true  man.  Having  seen  that  the 
law  in  us  is  commanding,  he  would  not  suffer 
it  to  be  commanded.  Boldly,  with  hand,  and 
heart,  and  life,  he  declared  it  was  God.  Thus 
is  he,  as  I  think,  the  only  soul  in  history  who 
has  appreciated  the  worth  of  man. 

i.  In  this  point  of  view  we  become  sensi 
ble  of  the  first  defect  of  historical  Christianity. 
Historical  Christianity  has  fallen  into  the  error 
that  corrupts  all  attempts  to  communicate  re 
ligion.  As  it  appears  to  us,  and  as  it  has  ap 
peared  for  ages,  it  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the 
soul,  but  an  exaggeration  of  the  personal,  the 
positive,  the  ritual.  It  has  dwelt,  it  dwells,  with 
noxious  exaggeration  about  the  person  of  Jesus. 
The  soul  knows  no  persons.  It  invites  every 
man  to  expand  to  the  full  circle  of  the  universe, 
and  will  have  no  preferences  but  those  of  spon 
taneous  love.  But  by  this  eastern  monarchy 
of  a  Christianity,  which  indolence  and  fear  have 
built,  the  friend  of  man  '  is  made  the  injurer 
of  man.  The  manner  in  which  his  name  is  sur 
rounded  with  expressions  which  were  once  sallies 
of  admiration  and  love,  but  are  now  petrified 
into  official  titles,  kills  all  generous  sympathy 


ADDRESS  131 

and  liking.  All  who  hear  me,  feel  that  the  lan 
guage  that  describes  Christ  to  Europe  and 
America  is  not  the  style  of  friendship  and  en 
thusiasm  to  a  good  and  noble  heart,  but  is  ap 
propriated  and  formal,  —  paints  a  demigod,  as 
the  Orientals  or  the  Greeks  would  describe 
Osiris  or  Apollo.  Accept  the  injurious  imposi 
tions  of  our  early  catechetical  instruction,  and 
even  honesty  and  self-denial  were  but  splendid 
sins,  if  they  did  not  wear  the  Christian  name. 
One  would  rather  be 

"  A  pagan,  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn,"  x 

than  to  be  defrauded  of  his  manly  right  in  com 
ing  into  nature  and  finding  not  names  and 
places,  not  land  and  professions,  but  even  vir 
tue  and  truth  foreclosed  and  monopolized.  You 
shall  not  be  a  man  even.  You  shall  not  own 
the  world  ;  you  shall  not  dare  and  live  after  the 
infinite  Law  that  is  in  you,  and  in  company  with 
the  infinite  Beauty  which  heaven  and  earth  re 
flect  to  you  in  all  lovely  forms  ;  but  you  must 
subordinate  your  nature  to  Christ's  nature;  you 
must  accept  our  interpretations,  and  take  his 
portrait  as  the  vulgar  draw  it. 

That  is  always  best  which  gives  me  to  my 
self.    The  sublime  is  excited  in  me  by  the  great 


132  ADDRESS 

stoical  doctrine,  Obey  thyself.  That  which 
shows  God  in  me,  fortifies  me.1  That  which 
shows  God  out  of  me,  makes  me  a  wart  and 
a  wen.  There  is  no  longer  a  necessary  reason 
for  my  being.  Already  the  long  shadows  of 
untimely  oblivion  creep  over  me,  and  I  shall 
decease  forever. 

The  divine  bards  are  the  friends  of  my  virtue, 
of  my  intellect,  of  my  strength.  They  admon 
ish  me  that  the  gleams  which  flash  across  my 
mind  are  not  mine,  but  God's  ;  that  they  had 
the  like,  and  were  not  disobedient  to  the  hea 
venly  vision.  So  I  love  them.  Noble  provo 
cations  go  out  from  them,  inviting  me  to  resist 
evil  ;  to  subdue  the  world  ;  and  to  Be.  And 
thus,  by  his  holy  thoughts,  Jesus  serves  us,  and 
thus  only.  To  aim  to  convert  a  man  by  mira 
cles  is  a  profanation  of  the  soul.  A  true  con 
version,  a  true  Christ,  is  now,  as  always,  to  be 
made  by  the  reception  of  beautiful  sentiments. 
It  is  true  that  a  great  and  rich  soul,  like  his, 
falling  among  the  simple,  does  so  preponderate, 
that,  as  his  did,  it  names  the  world.  The  world 
seems  to  them  to  exist  for  him,  and  they  have  not 
yet  drunk  so  deeply  of  his  sense  as  to  see  that 
only  by  coming  again  to  themselves,  or  to  God 
in  themselves,  can  they  grow  forevermore.  It 


ADDRESS  133 

is  a  low  benefit  to  give  me  something ;  it  is  a 
high  benefit  to  enable  me  to  do  somewhat  of 
myself.1  The  time  is  coming  when  all  men 
will  see  that  the  gift  of  God  to  the  soul  is  not  a 
vaunting,  overpowering,  excluding  sanctity,  but 
a  sweet,  natural  goodness,  a  goodness  like  thine 
and  mine,  and  that  so  invites  thine  and  mine  to 
be  and  to  grow. 

The  injustice  of  the  vulgar  tone  of  preaching 
is  not  less  flagrant  to  Jesus  than  to  the  souls 
which  it  profanes.  The  preachers  do  not  see 
that  they  make  his  gospel  not  glad,  and  shear 
him  of  the  locks  of  beauty  and  the  attributes 
of  heaven.  When  I  see  a  majestic  Epaminon- 
das,  or  Washington ;  when  I  see  among  my 
contemporaries  a  true  orator,  an  upright  judge, 
a  dear  friend  ;  when  I  vibrate  to  the  melody 
and  fancy  of  a  poem  ;  I  see  beauty  that  is  to  be 
desired.  And  so  lovely,  and  with  yet  more  en 
tire  consent  of  my  human  being,  sounds  in  my 
ear  the  severe  music  of  the  bards  that  have  sung 
of  the  true  God  in  all  ages.2  Now  do  not  de 
grade  the  life  and  dialogues  of  Christ  out  of  the 
circle  of  this  charm,  by  insulation  and  peculiar 
ity.  Let  them  lie  as  they  befell,  alive  and  warm, 
part  of  human  life  and  of  the  landscape  and  of 
the  cheerful  day. 


134  ADDRESS 

2.  The  second  defect  of  the  traditionary  and 
limited  way  of  using  the  mind  of  Christ  is  a 
consequence  of  the  first;  this,  namely  ;  that  the 
Moral  Nature,  that  Law  of  laws  whose  revela 
tions  introduce  greatness — yea,  God  himself — 
into  the  open  soul,  is  not  explored  as  the  foun 
tain  of  the  established  teaching  in  society.  Men 
have  come  to  speak  of  the  revelation  as  some 
what  long  ago  given  and  done,  as  if  God  were 
dead.  The  injury  to  faith  throttles  the  preacher ; 
and  the  goodliest  of  institutions  becomes  an  un 
certain  and  inarticulate  voice. 

It  is  very  certain  that  it  is  the  effect  of  con 
versation  with  the  beauty  of  the  soul,  to  beget 
a  desire  and  need  to  impart  to  others  the  same 
knowledge  and  love.  If  utterance  is  denied, 
the  thought  lies  like  a  burden  on  the  man.  Al 
ways  the  seer  is  a  sayer.  Somehow  his  dream 
is  told;  somehow  he  publishes  it  with  solemn 
joy :  sometimes  with  pencil  on  canvas,  some 
times  with  chisel  on  stone,  sometimes  in  towers 
and  aisles  of  granite,  his  soul's  worship  is  builded ; 
sometimes  in  anthems  of  indefinite  music ;  but 
clearest  and  most  permanent,  in  words.1 

The  man  enamored  of  this  excellency  be 
comes  its  priest  or  poet.  The  office  is  coeval 
with  the  world.  But  observe  the  condition,  the 


ADDRESS  135 

spiritual  limitation  of  the  office.  The  spirit 
only  can  teach.  Not  any  profane  man,  not  any 
sensual,  not  any  liar,  not  any  slave  can  teach, 
but  only  he  can  give,  who  has;  he  only  can  cre 
ate,  who  is.  The  man  on  whom  the  soul  de 
scends,  through  whom  the  soul  speaks,  alone 
can  teach.  Courage,  piety,  love,  wisdom,  can 
teach ;  and  every  man  can  open  his  door  to  these 
angels,  and  they  shall  bring  him  the  gift  of 
tongues.  But  the  man  who  aims  to  speak  as 
books  enable,  as  synods  use,  as  the  fashion 
guides,  and  as  interest  commands,  babbles.  Let 
him  hush. 

To  this  holy  office  you  propose  to  devote 
yourselves.  I  wish  you  may  feel  your  call  in 
throbs  of  desire  and  hope.  The  office  is  the 
first  in  the  world.  It  is  of  that  reality  that  it 
cannot  suffer  the  deduction  of  any  falsehood. 
And  it  is  my  duty  to  say  to  you  that  the  need 
was  never  greater  of  new  revelation  than  now. 
From  the  views  I  have  already  expressed,  you 
will  infer  the  sad  conviction,  which  I  share,  I 
believe,  with  numbers,  of  the  universal  decay 
and  now  almost  death  of  faith  in  society.  The 
soul  is  not  preached.  The  Church  seems  to 
totter  to  its  fall,  almost  all  life  extinct.1  On 
this  occasion,  any  complaisance  would  be  crimi- 


136  ADDRESS 

nal  which  told  you,  whose  hope  and  commission 
it  is  to  preach  the  faith  of  Christ,  that  the  faith 
of  Christ  is  preached. 

It  is  time  that  this  ill-suppressed  murmur  of 
all  thoughtful  men  against  the  famine  of  our 
churches  ;  — this  moaning  of  the  heart  because 
it  is  bereaved  of  the  consolation,  the  hope,  the 
grandeur  that  come  alone  out  of  the  culture  of 
the  moral  nature,  —  should  be  heard  through 
the  sleep  of  indolence,  and  over  the  din  of 
routine.  This  great  and  perpetual  office  of  the 
preacher  is  not  discharged.  Preaching  is  the 
expression  of  the  moral  sentiment  in  application 
to  the  duties  of  life.  In  how  many  churches, 
by  how  many  prophets,  tell  me,  is  man  made 
sensible  that  he  is  an  infinite  Soul  ;  that  the 
earth  and  heavens  are  passing  into  his  mind  ; 
that  he  is  drinking  forever  the  soul  of  God  ? 
Where  now  sounds  the  persuasion,  that  by  its 
very  melody  imparadises  my  heart,  and  so  af 
firms  its  own  origin  in  heaven  ?  Where  shall  I 
hear  words  such  as  in  elder  ages  drew  men  to 
leave  all  and  follow,  —  father  and  mother,  house 
and  land,  wife  and  child  ?  Where  shall  I  hear 
these  august  laws  of  moral  being  so  pronounced 
as  to  fill  my  ear,  and  I  feel  ennobled  by  the  offer 
of  my  uttermost  action  and  passion?  The  test 


ADDRESS  137 

of  the  true  faith,  certainly,  should  be  its  power 
to  charm  and  command  the  soul,  as  the  laws  of 
nature  control  the  activity  of  the  hands,  —  so 
commanding  that  we  find  pleasure  and  honor  in 
obeying.  The  faith  should  blend  with  the  light 
of  rising  and  of  setting  suns,  with  the  flying  cloud, 
the  singing  bird,  and  the  breath  of  flowers.  But 
now  the  priest's  Sabbath  has  lost  the  splendor 
of  nature  ;  it  is  unlovely  ;  we  are  glad  when  it 
is  done  ;  we  can  make,  we  do  make,  even  sitting 
in  our  pews,  a  far  better,  holier,  sweeter,  for 
ourselves.1 

Whenever  the  pulpit  is  usurped  by  a  formal 
ist,  then  is  the  worshipper  defrauded  and  dis 
consolate.  We  shrink  as  soon  as  the  prayers 
begin,  which  do  not  uplift,  but  smite  and  offend 
us.  We  are  fain  to  wrap  our  cloaks  about  us, 
and  secure,  as  best  we  can,  a  solitude  that  hears 
not.YTonce  heard  a  preacher  who  sorely  tempted 
me  to  say  I  would  go  to  church  no  more.  Men 
go,  thought  I,  where  they  are  wont  to  go,  else 
had  no  soul  entered  the  temple  in  the  afternoon. 
A  snow-storm  was  falling  around  us.  The  snow 
storm  was  real,  the  preacher  merely  spectral,  and 
the  eye  felt  the  sad  contrast  in  looking  at  him, 
and  then  out  of  the  window  behind  him  into  the 
beautiful  meteor  of  the  snow.  He  had  lived  in 


138  ADDRESS 

vain.    He  had  no  one  word  intimating  that  he 
had  laughed  or  wept,  was  married  or  in  love,  had 
/  been  commended,  or  cheated,  or  chagrined.    If 

v  he  had  ever  lived  and  acted,  we  were  none  the 
wiser  for  it.  The  capital  secret  of  his  profession, 
^namely,  to  convert  life  into  truth,  he  had  not 
learned.  Not  one  fact  in  all  his  experience  had 
he  yet  imported  into  his  doctrine.  This  man 
had  ploughed  and  planted  a^rd^talked  and  bought 
*~?  '*  and  sold ;  he  had  read  books  ;  he  had  eaten  and 
drunken  ;  his  head  aches,  his  heart  throbs ;  he 
smiles  and  suffers  ;  yet  was  there  not  a  surmise, 
a  hint,  in  all  the  discourse,  that  he  had  ever  lived 
at  all.  Not  a  line  did  he  draw  out  of  real  his 
tory.  The  true  preacher  can  be  known  by  this, 
that  he  deals  out  to  the  people  his  life,  —  life 
passed  through  the  fire  of  thought.1  But  of  the 
bad  preacher,  it  could  not  be  told  from  his  ser 
mon  what  age  of  the  world  he  fell  in  ;  whether 
he  had  a  father  or  a  child  ;  whether  he  was  a 
freeholder  or  a  pauper ;  whether  he  was  a  citizen 
or  a  countryman ;  or  any  other  fact  of  his  bio 
graphy.  It  seemed  strange  that  the  people  should 
come  to  church.  It  seemed  as  if  their  houses 
were  very  unentertaining,  that  they  should  pre 
fer  this  thoughtless  clamor.  It  shows  that  there 
is  a  commanding  attraction  in  the  moral  senti- 


ADDRESS  139 

ment,  that  can  lend  a  faint  tint  of  light  to  dulness 
and  ignorance  coming  in  its  name  and  place. 
The  good  hearer  is  sure  he  has  been  touched 
sometimes ;  is  sure  there  is  somewhat  to  be 
reached,  and  some  word  that  can  reach  it.  When 
he  listens  to  these  vain  words,  he  comforts 
himself  by  their  relation  to  his  remembrance 
of  better  hours,  and  so  they  clatter  and  echo 
unchallenged. 

I  am  not  ignorant  that  when  we  preach  un 
worthily,  it  is  not  always  quite  in  vain.  There  is 
a  good  ear,  in  some  men,  that  draws  supplies  to 
virtue  out  of  very  indifferent  nutriment.  There 
is  poetic  truth  concealed  in  all  the  common 
places  of  prayer  and  of  sermons,  and  though 
foolishly  spoken,  they  may  be  wisely  heard  ;  for 
each  is  some  select  expression  that  broke  out  in 
a  moment  of  piety  from  some  stricken  or  jubi 
lant  soul,  and  its  excellency  made  it  remembered. 
The  prayers  and  even  the  dogmas  of  our  church 
are  like  the  zodiac  of  Denderah  and  the  astro 
nomical  monuments  of  the  Hindoos,  wholly  in 
sulated  from  anything  now  extant  in  the  life  and 
business  of  the  people.  They  mark  the  height 
to  which  the  waters  once  rose.  But  this  docility 
is  a  check  upon  the  mischief  from  the  good  and 
devout.  In  a  large  portion  of  the  community,  the 


140  ADDRESS 

religious  service  gives  rise  to  quite  other  thoughts 
and  emotions.  We  need  not  chide  the  negligent 
servant.  We  are  struck  with  pity,  rather,  at  the 
swift  retribution  of  his  sloth.  Alas  for  the  un 
happy  man  that  is  called  to  stand  in  the  pulpit, 
and  not  give  bread  of  life.  Everything  that  be 
falls,  accuses  him.  Would  he  ask  contributions 
for  the  missions,  foreign  or  domestic  ?  Instantly 
his  face  is  suffused  with  shame,  to  propose  to  his 
parish  that  they  should  send  money  a  hundred 
or  a  thousand  miles,  to  furnish  such  poor  fare  as 
they  have  at  home  and  would  do  well  to  go  the 
hundred  or  the  thousand  miles  to  escape.  Would 
he  urge  people  to  a  godly  way  of  living  ;  —  and 
can  he  ask  a  fellow-creature  to  come  to  Sabbath 
meetings,  when  he  and  they  all  know  what  is 
the  poor  uttermost  they  can  hope  for  therein  ? 
Will  he  invite  them  privately  to  the  Lord's 
Supper?  He  dares  not.  If  no  heart  warm  this 
rite,  the  hollow,  dry,  creaking  formality  is  too 
plain,  than  that  he  can  face  a  man  of  wit  and 
energy  and  put  the  invitation  without  terror.  In 
the  street,  what  has  he  to  say  to  the  bold  village 
blasphemer?  The  village  blasphemer  sees  fear 
in  the  face,  form,  and  gait  of  the  minister. 

Let  me  not  taint  the  sincerity  of  this  plea  by 
any  oversight  of  the  claims  of  good  men.    I 


ADDRESS  141 

know  and  honor  the  purity  and  strict  conscience 
of  numbers  of  the  clergy.  What  life  the  public 
worship  retains,  it  owes  to  the  scattered  com 
pany  of  pious  men,  who  minister  here  and  there 
in  the  churches,  and  who,  sometimes  accepting 
with  too  great  tenderness  the  tenet  of  the  elders, 
have  not  accepted  from  others,  but  from  their 
own  heart,  the  genuine  impulses  of  virtue,  and  so 
still  command  our  love  and  awe,  to  the  sanctity 
of  character.  Moreover,  the  exceptions  are  not 
so  much  to  be  found  in  a  few  eminent  preach 
ers,  as  in  the  better  hours,  the  truer  inspirations 
of  all,  —  nay,  in  the  sincere  moments  of  every 
man.  But,  with  whatever  exception,  it  is  still  true 
that  tradition  characterizes  the  preaching  of  this 
country ;  that  it  comes  out  of  the  memory,  and 
not  out  of  the  soul ;  that  it  aims  at  what  is  usual, 
and  not  at  what  is  necessary  and  eternal ;  that 
thus  historical  Christianity  destroys  the  power 
of  preaching,  by  withdrawing  it  from  the  explo 
ration  of  the  moral  nature  of  man  ;  where  the 
sublime  is,  where  are  the  resources  of  astonish 
ment  and  power.  What  a  cruel  injustice  it  is  to 
that  Law,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  which  alone 
can  make  thought  dear  and  rich ;  that  Law  whose 
fatal  sureness  the  astronomical  orbits  poorly 
emulate  ;  —  that  it  is  travestied  and  depreciated, 


142  ADDRESS 

that  it  is  behooted  and  behowled,  and  not  a  trait, 
not  a  word  of  it  articulated.  The  pulpit  in  los 
ing  sight  of  this  Law,  loses  its  reason,  and  gropes 
after  it  knows  not  what.  And  for  want  of  this 
culture  the  soul  of  the  community  is  sick  and 
faithless.  It  wants  nothing  so  much  as  a  stern, 
high,  stoical,  Christian  discipline,  to  make  it 
know  itself  and  the  divinity  that  speaks  through 
it.  Now  man  is  ashamed  of  himself;  he  skulks 
and  sneaks  through  the  world,  to  be  tolerated, 
to  be  pitied,1  and  scarcely  in  a  thousand  years 
does  any  man  dare  to  be  wise  and  good,  and  so 
draw  after  him  the  tears  and  blessings  of  his 
kind. 

Certainly  there  have  been  periods  when,  from 
the  inactivity  of  the  intellect  on  certain  truths,  a 
greater  faith  was  possible  in  names  and  persons. 
The  Puritans  in  England  and  America  found  in 
the  Christ  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  in  the  dog 
mas  inherited  from  Rome,  scope  for  their  austere 
piety  and  their  longings  for  civil  freedom.  But 
their  creed  is  passing  away,  and  none  arises  in  its 
room.  I  think  no  man  can  go  with  his  thoughts 
about  him  into  one  of  our  churches,  without 
feeling  that  what  hold  the  public  worship  had 
on  men  is  gone,  or  going.  It  has  lost  its  grasp 
on  the  affection  of  the  good  and  the  fear  of  the 


ADDRESS  143 

bad.  In  the  country,  neighborhoods,  half  par 
ishes  are  signing  off,  to  use  the  local  term.  It  is 
already  beginning  to  indicate  character  and  reli 
gion  to  withdraw  from  the  religious  meetings. 
I  have  heard  a  devout  person,  who  prized  the 
Sabbath,  say  in  bitterness  of  heart,  "  On  Sun 
days,  it  seems  wicked  to  go  to  church."  And 
the  motive  that  holds  the  best  there  is  now  only 
a  hope  and  a  waiting.  What  was  once  a  mere 
circumstance,  that  the  best  and  the  worst  men  in 
the  parish,  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  learned 
and  the  ignorant,  young  and  old,  should  meet 
one  day  as  fellows  in  one  house,  in  sign  of  an 
equal  right  in  the  soul,  has  come  to  be  a  para 
mount  motive  for  going  thither. 

My  friends,  in  these  two  errors,  I  think,  I  find 
the  causes  of  a  decaying  church  and  a  wasting 
unbelief.  And  what  greater  calamity  can  fall 
upon  a  nation  than  the  loss  of  worship  ?  Then 
all  things  go  to  decay.  Genius  leaves  the  tem 
ple  to  haunt  the  senate  or  the  market.  Litera 
ture  becomes  frivolous.  Science  is  cold.  The 
eye  of  youth  is  not  lighted  by  the  hope  of  other 
worlds,  and  age  is  without  honor.  Society  lives 
to  trifles,  and  when  men  die  we  do  not  mention 
them. 

And  now,  my  brothers,  you  will  ask,What  in 


144  ADDRESS 

these  desponding  days  can  be  done  by  us  ?  The 
remedy  is  already  declared  in  the  ground  of  our 
complaint  of  the  Church.  We  have  contrasted 
the  Church  with  the  Soul.  In  the  soul  then  let 
the  redemption  be  sought.  Wherever  a  man 
comes,  there  comes  revolution.  The  old  is  for 
slaves.  When  a  man  comes,  all  books  are  legi 
ble,  all  things  transparent,  all  religions  are  forms. 
He  is  religious.  Man  is  the  wonderworker.  He 
is  seen  amid  miracles.  All  men  bless  and  curse. 
He  saith  yea  and  nay,  only.  The  stationari- 
ness  of  religion  ;  the  assumption  that  the  age  of 
inspiration  is  past,  that  the  Bible  is  closed ;  the 
fear  of  degrading  the  character  of  Jesus  by  re 
presenting  him  as  a  man  ;  —  indicate  with  suffi 
cient  clearness  the  falsehood  of  our  theology. 
Jt  is  the  office  of  a  true  teacher  to  show  us  that 
God  is,  not  was ;  that  He  speaketh,  not  spake. 
The  true  Christianity,  —  a  faith  like  Christ's  in 
the  infinitude  of  man,  —  is  lost.  None  believeth 
in  the  soul  of  man,  but  only  in  some  man  or  per 
son  old  and  departed.  Ah  me  !  no  man  goeth 
alone.  All  men  go  in  flocks  to  this  saint  or 
that  poet,  avoiding  the  God  who  seeth  in  secret. 
They  cannot  see  in  secret ;  they  love  to  be  blind 
in  public.  They  think  society  wiser  than  their 
soul,  and  know  not  that  one  soul,  and  their  soul, 


ADDRESS  145 

is  wiser  than  the  whole  world.1  See  how  nations 
and  races  flit  by  on  the  sea  of  time  and  leave  no 
ripple  to  tell  where  they  floated  or  sunk,  and 
one  good  soul  shall  make  the  name  of  Moses, 
or  of  Zeno,  or  of  Zoroaster,  reverend  forever. 
None  assayeth  the  stern  ambition  to  be  the  Self 
of  the  nation  and  of  nature,  but  each  would  be 
an  easy  secondary  to  some  Christian  scheme, 
or  sectarian  connection,  or  some  eminent  man. 
Once  leave  your  own  knowledge  of  God,  your 
own  sentiment,  and  take  secondary  knowledge, 
as  St.  Paul's,  or  George  Fox's,  or  Swedenborg's, 
and  you  get  wide  from  God  with  every  year  this 
secondary  form  lasts,  and  if,  as  now,  for  cen 
turies,  —  the  chasm  yawns  to  that  breadth,  that 
men  can  scarcely  be  convinced  there  is  in  them 
anything  divine. 

Let  me  admonish  you,  first  of  all,  to  go  alone ; 
to  refuse  the  good  models,  even  those  which 
are  sacred  in  the  imagination  of  men,  and  dare 
to  love  God  without  mediator  or  veil.  Friends 
enough  you  shall  find  who  will  hold  up  to  your 
emulation  Wesleys  and  Oberlins,  Saints  and 
Prophets.  Thank  God  for  these  good  men,  but 
say,  c  I  also  am  a  man.'  Imitation  cannot  go 
above  its  model.  The  imitator  dooms  himself 
to  hopeless  mediocrity.  The  inventor  did  it  be- 


146  ADDRESS 

cause  it  was  natural  to  him,  and  so  in  him  it  has 
a  charm.  In  the  imitator  something  else  is  nat 
ural,  and  he  bereaves  himself  of  his  own  beauty, 
to  come  short  of  another  man's. 

Yourself  a  newborn  bard  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
cast  behind  you  all  conformity,  and  acquaint 
men  at  first  hand  with  Deity.  Look  to  it  first 
and  only,  that  fashion,  custom,  authority,  plea 
sure,  and  money,  are  nothing  to  you,  —  are  not 
bandages  over  your  eyes,  that  you  cannot  see, 
—  but  live  with  the  privilege  of  the  immeasur 
able  mind.  Not  too  anxious  to  visit  periodically 
all  families  and  each  family  in  your  parish  con 
nection, —  when  you  meet  one  of  these  men  or 
women,  be  to  them  a  divine  man;  be  to  them 
thought  and  virtue ;  let  their  timid  aspirations 
find  in  you  a  friend  ;  let  their  trampled  instincts 
be  genially  tempted  out  in  your  atmosphere  ;  let 
their  doubts  know  that  you  have  doubted,  and 
their  wonder  feel  that  you  have  wondered.  By 
trusting  your  own  heart,  you  shall  gain  more 
confidence  in  other  men.  For  all  our  penny- 
wisdom,  for  all  our  soul-destroying  slavery  to 
habit,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  all  men  have 
sublime  thoughts  ;  that  all  men  value  the  few 
real  hours  of  life ;  they  love  to  be  heard ;  they 
love  to  be  caught  up  into  the  vision  of  princi- 


ADDRESS  147 

pies.  We  mark  with  light  in  the  memory  the  few 
interviews  we  have  had,  in  the  dreary  years  of 
routine  and  of  sin,  with  souls  that  made  our 
souls  wiser  ;  that  spoke  what  we  thought ;  that 
told  us  what  we  knew ;  that  gave  us  leave  to 
be  what  we  inly  were.  Discharge  to  men  the 
priestly  office,  and,  present  or  absent,  you  shall 
be  followed  with  their  love  as  by  an  angel. 

And,  to  this  end,  let  us  not  aim  at  common 
degrees  of  merit.  Can  we  not  leave,  to  such  as 
love  it,  the  virtue  that  glitters  for  the  commen 
dation  of  society,  and  ourselves  pierce  the  deep 
solitudes  of  absolute  ability  and  worth?  We 
easily  come  up  to  the  standard  of  goodness  in 
society.  Society's  praise  can  be  cheaply  secured, 
and  almost  all  men  are  content  with  those  easy 
merits  ;  but  the  instant  effect  of  conversing  with 
God  will  be  to  put  them  away.  There  are  per 
sons  who  are  not  actors,  not  speakers,  but  influ 
ences  ;  persons  too  great  for  fame,  for  display ; 
who  disdain  eloquence ;  to  whom  all  we  call  art 
and  artist,  seems  too  nearly  allied  to  show  and 
by-ends,  to  the  exaggeration  of  the  finite  and 
selfish,  and  loss  of  the  universal.  The  orators, 
the  poets,  the  commanders  encroach  on  us  only 
as  fair  women  do,  by  our  allowance  and  homage. 
Slight  them  by  preoccupation  of  mind,  slight 


148  ADDRESS 

them,  as  you  can  well  afford  to  do,  by  high  and 
universal  aims,  and  they  instantly  feel  that  you 
have  right,  and  that  it  is  in  lower  places  that  they 
must  shine.  They  also  feel  your  right ;  for  they 
with  you  are  open  to  the  influx  of  the  all-know 
ing  Spirit,  which  annihilates  before  its  broad 
noon  the  little  shades  and  gradations  of  intel 
ligence  in  the  compositions  we  call  wiser  and 
wisest. 

In  such  high  communion  let  us  study  the 
grand  strokes  of  rectitude :  a  bold  benevolence, 
an  independence  of  friends,  so  that  not  the  un 
just  wishes  of  those  who  love  us  shall  impair 
our  freedom,  but  we  shall  resist  for  truth's  sake 
the  freest  flow  of  kindness,  and  appeal  to  sym 
pathies  far  in  advance  ; J  and, — what  is  the  high 
est  form  in  which  we  know  this  beautiful  ele 
ment,  —  a  certain  solidity  of  merit,  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  opinion,  and  which  is  so 
essentially  and  manifestly  virtue,  that  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  the  right,  the  brave,  the  gener 
ous  step  will  be  taken  by  it,  and  nobody  thinks 
of  commending  it.  You  would  compliment  a 
coxcomb  doing  a  good  act,  but  you  would  not 
praise  an  angel.  The  silence  that  accepts  merit 
as  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  is  the 
highest  applause.  Such  souls,  when  they  appear, 


ADDRESS  149 

are  the  Imperial  Guard  of  Virtue,  the  perpet 
ual  reserve,  the  dictators  of  fortune.  One  needs 
not  praise  their  courage,  —  they  are  the  heart 
and  soul  of  nature.  O  my  friends,  there  are 
resources  in  us  on  which  we  have  not  drawn. 
There  are  men  who  rise  refreshed  on  hearing  a 
threat ;  men  to  whom  a  crisis  which  intimidates 
and  paralyzes  the  majority, — demanding  not  the 
faculties  of  prudence  and  thrift,  but  comprehen 
sion,  immovableness,  the  readiness  of  sacrifice, 
—  comes  graceful  and  beloved  as  a  bride.  Na 
poleon  said  of  Massena,  that  he  was  not  himself 
until  the  battle  began  to  go  against  him  ;  then, 
when  the  dead  began  to  fall  in  ranks  around 
him,  awoke  his  powers  of  combination,  and  he 
put  on  terror  and  victory  as  a  robe.  So  it  is  in 
rugged  crises,  in  unweariable  endurance,  and  in 
aims  which  put  sympathy  out  of  question,  that 
the  angel  is  shown.  But  these  are  heights  that 
we  can  scarce  remember  and  look  up  to  without 
contrition  and  shame.  Let  us  thank  God  that 
such  things  exist. 

And  now  let  us  do  what  we  can  to  rekindle 
the  smouldering,  nigh  quenched  fire  on  the 
altar.  The  evils  of  the  church  that  now  is  are 
manifest.  The  question  returns,  What  shall  we 
do  ?  I  confess,  all  attempts  to  project  and  es- 


150  ADDRESS 

tablish  a  Cultus  with  new  rites  and  forms,  seem 
to  me  vain.  Faith  makes  us,  and  not  we  it, 
and  faith  makes  its  own  forms.  All  attempts  to 
contrive  a  system  are  as  cold  as  the  new  wor 
ship  introduced  by  the  French  to  the  goddess 
of  Reason,  —  to-day,  pasteboard  and  filigree, 
and  ending  to-morrow  in  madness  and  murder. 
Rather  let  the  breath  of  new  life  be  breathed  by 
you  through  the  forms  already  existing.  For 
if  once  you  are  alive,  you  shall  find  they  shall 
become  plastic  and  new.  The  remedy  to  their 
deformity  is  first,  soul,  and  second,  soul,  and 
evermore,  soul.  A  whole  popedom  of  forms 
one  pulsation  of  virtue  can  uplift  and  vivify. 
Two  inestimable  advantages  Christianity  has 
given  us ;  first  the  Sabbath,  the  jubilee  of  the 
whole  world,  whose  light  dawns  welcome  alike 
into  the  closet  of  the  philosopher,  into  the  gar 
ret  of  toil,  and  into  prison-cells,  and  everywhere 
suggests,  even  to  the  vile,  the  dignity  of  spirit 
ual  being.  Let  it  stand  forevermore,  a  temple, 
which  new  love,  new  faith,  new  sight  shall  re 
store  to  more  than  its  first  splendor  to  mankind.1 
And  secondly,  the  institution  of  preaching, — 
the  speech  of  man  to  men,  —  essentially  the 
most  flexible  of  all  organs,  of  all  forms.  What 
hinders  that  now,  everywhere,  in  pulpits,  in 


ADDRESS  151 

lecture-rooms,  in  houses,  in  fields,  wherever  the 
invitation  of  men  or  your  own  occasions  lead 
you,  you  speak  the  very  truth,  as  your  life  and 
conscience  teach  it,  and  cheer  the  waiting,  faint 
ing  hearts  of  men  with  new  hope  and  new  reve 
lation  ? ' 

I  look  for  the  hour  when  that  supreme  Beauty 
which  ravished  the  souls  of  those  Eastern  men, 
and  chiefly  of  those  Hebrews,  and  through  their 
lips  spoke  oracles  to  all  time,  shall  speak  in  the 
West  also.  The  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures 
contain  immortal  sentences,  that  have  been  bread 
of  life  to  millions.  But  they  have  no  epical 
integrity ;  are  fragmentary  ;  are  not  shown  in 
their  order  to  the  intellect.  I  look  for  the  new 
Teacher  that  shall  follow  so  far  those  shining 
laws  that  he  shall  see  them  come  full  circle ; 
shall  see  their  rounding  complete  grace  ;  shall 
see  the  world  to  be  the  mirror  of  the  soul  ; 2 
shall  see  the  identity  of  the  law  of  gravitation 
with  purity  of  heart ;  and  shall  show  that  the 
Ought,  that  Duty,  is  one  thing  with  Science, 
with  Beauty,  and  with  Joy. 


LITERARY   ETHICS 

AN    ORATION    DELIVERED    BEFORE   THE    LITERARY 

SOCIETIES   OF    DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE, 

JULY  24,  1838 


LITERARY    ETHICS 

GENTLEMEN  : 

^T^HE  invitation  to  address  you  this  day, 
A  with  which  you  have  honored  me,  was  a 
call  so  welcome  that  I  made  haste  to  obey  it. 
A  summons  to  celebrate  with  scholars  a  literary 
festival,  is  so  alluring  to  me  as  to  overcome  the 
doubts  I  might  well  entertain  of  my  ability  to 
bring  you  any  thought  worthy  of  your  attention. 
I  have  reached  the  middle  age  of  man  ;  yet  I 
believe  I  am  not  less  glad  or  sanguine  at  the 
meeting  of  scholars,  than  when,  a  boy,  I  first 
saw  the  graduates  of  my  own  College  assembled 
at  their  anniversary.  Neither  years  nor  books 
have  yet  availed  to  extirpate  a  prejudice  then 
rooted  in  me,  that  a  scholar  is  the  favorite  of 
Heaven  and  earth,  the  excellency  of  his  coun 
try,  the  happiest  of  men.1  His  duties  lead  him 
directly  into  the  holy  ground  where  other  men's 
aspirations  only  point.  His  successes  are  occa 
sions  of  the  purest  joy  to  all  men.  Eyes  is  he 
to  the  blind  ;  feet  is  he  to  the  lame.  His  fail 
ures,2  if  he  is  worthy,  are  inlets  to  higher  ad 
vantages.  And  because  the  scholar  by  every 
thought  he  thinks  extends  his  dominion  into 


156  LITERARY  ETHICS 

the  general  mind  of  men,  he  is  not  one,  but 
many.  The  few  scholars  in  each  country,  whose 
genius  I  know,  seem  to  me  not  individuals,  but 
societies  ;  and  when  events  occur  of  great  im 
port,  I  count  over  these  representatives  of  opin 
ion,  whom  they  will  affect,  as  if  I  were  counting 
nations.  And  even  if  his  results  were  incom 
municable  ;  if  they  abode  in  his  own  spirit ;  the 
intellect  hath  somewhat  so  sacred  in  its  posses 
sions  that  the  fact  of  his  existence  and  pursuits 
would  be  a  happy  omen. 

Meantime  I  know  that  a  very  different  esti 
mate  of  the  scholar's  profession  prevails  in  this 
country,  and  the  importunity,  with  which  soci 
ety  presses  its  claim  upon  young  men,  tends  to 
pervert  the  views  of  the  youth  in  respect  to  the 
culture  of  the  intellect.  Hence  the  historical 
failure,  on  which  Europe  and  America  have  so 
freely  commented.  This  country  has  not  ful 
filled  what  seemed  the  reasonable  expectation 
of  mankind.  Men  looked,  when  all  feudal  straps 
and  bandages  were  snapped  asunder,  that  nature, 
too  long  the  mother  of  dwarfs,  should  reimburse 
itself  by  a  brood  of  Titans,  who  should  laugh 
and  leap  in  the  continent,  and  run  up  the  moun 
tains  of  the  West  with  the  errand  of  genius  and 
of  love.  But  the  mark  of  American  merit  in 


LITERARY  ETHICS  157 

painting,  in  sculpture,  in  poetry,  in  fiction,  in 
eloquence,  seems  to  be  a  certain  grace  without 
grandeur,  and  itself  not  new  but  derivative,  a 
vase  of  fair  outline,  but  empty,  —  which  whoso 
sees  may  fill  with  what  wit  and  character  is  in 
him,  but  which  does  not,  like  the  charged  cloud, 
overflow  with  terrible  beauty,  and  emit  light 
nings  on  all  beholders. 

I  will  not  lose  myself  in  the  desultory  ques 
tions,  what  are  the  limitations,  and  what  the 
causes  of  the  fact.  It  suffices  me  to  say,  in  gen 
eral,  that  the  diffidence  of  mankind  in  the  soul 
has  crept  over  the  American  mind ;  that  men 
here,  as  elsewhere,  are  indisposed  to  innovation, 
and  prefer  any  antiquity,  any  usage,  any  livery 
productive  of  ease  or  profit,  to  the  unproductive 
service  of  thought. 

Yet  in  every  sane  hour  the  service  of  thought 
appears  reasonable,  the  despotism  of  the  senses 
insane.  The  scholar  may  lose  himself  in  schools, 
in  words,  and  become  a  pedant ;  but  when  he 
comprehends  his  duties  he  above  all  men  is 
a  realist,  and  converses  with  things.  For  the 
scholar  is  the  student  of  the  world  ;  and  of  what 
worth  the  world  is,  and  with  what  emphasis  it 
accosts  the  soul  of  man,  such  is  the  worth,  such 
the  call  of  the  scholar. 


158  LITERARY  ETHICS 

The  want  of  the  times  and  the  propriety  of 
this  anniversary  concur  to  draw  attention  to  the 
doctrine  of  Literary  Ethics.  What  I  have  to 
say  on  that  doctrine  distributes  itself  under  the 
topics  of  the  resources,  the  subject,  and  the  dis 
cipline  of  the  scholar. 

I.  The  resources  of  the  scholar  are  propor 
tioned  to  his  confidence  in  the  attributes  of  the 
Intellect.  The  resources  of  the  scholar  are  co 
extensive  with  nature  and  truth,  yet  can  never 
be  his  unless  claimed  by  him  with  an  equal 
greatness  of  mind.  He  cannot  know  them  until 
he  has  beheld  with  awe  the  infinitude  and  im 
personality  of  the  intellectual  power.1  When  he 
has  seen  that  it  is  not  his,  nor  any  man's,  but 
that  it  is  the  soul  which  made  the  world,  and 
that  it  is  all  accessible  to  him,  he  will  know  that 
he,  as  its  minister,  may  rightfully  hold  all  things 
subordinate  and  answerable  to  it.  A  divine  pil 
grim  in  nature,  all  things  attend  his  steps.  Over 
him  stream  the  flying  constellations ;  over  him 
streams  Time,  as  they,  scarcely  divided  into 
months  and  years.  He  inhales  the  year  as  a 
vapor:  its  fragrant  midsummer  breath,  its  spar 
kling  January  heaven.  And  so  pass  into  his  mind, 
in  bright  transfiguration,  the  grand  events  of 


LITERARY  ETHICS  159 

history,  to  take  a  new  order  and  scale  from  him. 
He  is  the  world  ;  and  the  epochs  and  heroes 
of  chronology  are  pictorial  images,  in  which  his 
thoughts  are  told.  There  is  no  event  but  sprung 
somewhere  from  the  soul  of  man  ;  and  there 
fore  there  is  none  but  the  soul  of  man  can 
interpret.  Every  presentiment  of  the  mind  is 
executed  somewhere  in  a  gigantic  fact.  What 
else  is  Greece,  Rome,  England,  France,  St.  He 
lena  ?  What  else  are  churches,  literatures,  and 
empires  ?  The  new  man  must  feel  that  he  is 
new,  and  has  not  come  into  the  world  mort 
gaged  to  the  opinions  and  usages  of  Europe, 
and  Asia,  and  Egypt.  The  sense  of  spiritual 
independence  is  like  the  lovely  varnish  of  the 
dew,1  whereby  the  old,  hard,  peaked  earth  and 
its  old  self-same  productions  are  made  new  every 
morning,  and  shining  with  the  last  touch  of  the 
artist's  hand.  A  false  humility,  a  complaisance 
to  reigning  schools  or  to  the  wisdom  of  antiquity, 
must  not  defraud  me  of  supreme  possession  of 
this  hour.  If  any  person  have  less  love  of  lib 
erty  and  less  jealousy  to  guard  his  integrity,  shall 
he  therefore  dictate  to  you  and  me  ?  Say  to  such 
doctors,  We  are  thankful  to  you,  as  we  are  to 
history,  to  the  pyramids,  and  the  authors  ;  but 
now  our  day  is  come ;  we  have  been  born  out 


160  LITERARY  ETHICS 

of  the  eternal  silence  ;  and  now  will  we  live,  — 
live  for  ourselves,  —  and  not  as  the  pall-bearers 
of  a  funeral,  but  as  the  upholders  and  creators  of 
our  age  ;  and  neither  Greece  nor  Rome,  nor  the 
three  Unities  of  Aristotle,  nor  the  three  Kings 
of  Cologne,  nor  the  College  of  the  Sorbonne, 
nor  the  Edinburgh  Review  is  to  command  any 
longer.  Now  that  we  are  here  we  will  put  our 
own  interpretation  on  things,  and  our  own  things 
for  interpretation.  Please  himself  with  complai 
sance  who  will,1 — for  me,  things  must  take  my 
scale,  not  I  theirs.  I  will  say  with  the  warlike 
king,  "  God  gave  me  this  crown,  and  the  whole 
world  shall  not  take  it  away." 

The  whole  value  of  history,  of  biography,  is 
to  increase  my  self-trust,  by  demonstrating  what 
man  can  be  and  do.2  This  is  the  moral  of  the 
Plutarchs,  the  Cudworths,  the  Tennemanns,who 
give  us  the  story  of  men  or  of  opinions.3  Any 
history  of  philosophy  fortifies  my  faith,  by  show 
ing  me  that  what  high  dogmas  I  had  supposed 
were  the  rare  and  late  fruit  of  a  cumulative  cul 
ture,  and  only  now  possible  to  some  recent  Kant 
or  Fichte,  —  were  the  prompt  improvisations  of 
the  earliest  inquirers  ;  of  Parmenides,  Heracli- 
tus,  and  Xenophanes.4  In  view  of  these  students, 
the  soul  seems  to  whisper,  'There  is  a  better  way 


LITERARY  ETHICS  161 

than  this  indolent  learning  of  another.  Leave 
me  alone ;  do  not  teach  me  out  of  Leibnitz  or 
Schelling,  and  I  shall  find  it  all  out  myself.' 

Still  more  do  we  owe  to  biography  the  forti 
fication  of  our  hope.  If  you  would  know  the 
power  of  character,  see  how  much  you  would 
impoverish  the  world  if  you  could  take  clean 
out  of  history  the  lives  of  Milton,  Shakspeare, 
and  Plato,  —  these  three,  and  cause  them  not  to 
be.  See  you  not  how  much  less  the  power  of 
man  would  be  ?  I  console  myself  in  the  poverty 
of  my  thoughts,  in  the  paucity  of  great  men,  in 
the  malignity  and  dulness  of  the  nations,  by  fall 
ing  back  on  these  sublime  recollections,,  and  see 
ing  what  the  prolific  soul  could  beget  on  actual 
nature; — seeing  that  Plato  was,  and  Shakspeare, 
and  Milton,  —  three  irrefragable  facts.  Then  I 
dare ;  I  also  will  essay  to  be.1  The  humblest, 
the  most  hopeless,  in  view  of  these  radiant  facts, 
may  now  theorize  and  hope.  In  spite  of  all  the 
rueful  abortions  that  squeak  and  gibber  in  the 
street,  in  spite  of  slumber  and  guilt,  in  spite  of 
the  army,  the  bar-room,  and  the  jail,  have  been 
these  glorious  manifestations  of  the  mind ;  and 
I  will  thank  my  great  brothers  so  truly  for  the 
admonition  of  their  being,  as  to  endeavor  also 
to  be  just  and  brave,  to  aspire  and  to  speak. 


162  LITERARY  ETHICS 

Plotinus  too,  and  Spinoza,  and  the  immortal 
bards  of  philosophy,  —  that  which  they  have 
written  out  with  patient  courage,  makes  me  bold. 
No  more  will  I  dismiss,  with  haste,  the  visions 
which  flash  and  sparkle  across  my  sky ;  but  ob 
serve  them,  approach  them,  domesticate  them, 
brood  on  them,  and  draw  out  of  the  past,  genu 
ine  life  for  the  present  hour. 

To  feel  the  full  value  of  these  lives,  as  occa 
sions  of  hope  and  provocation,  you  must  come 
to  know  that  each  admirable  genius  is  but  a  suc 
cessful  diver  in  that  sea  whose  floor  of  pearls  is 
all  your  own.  The  impoverishing  philosophy 
of  ages  has  laid  stress  on  the  distinctions  of  the 
individual,  and  not  on  the  universal  attributes 
of  man.  The  youth,  intoxicated  with  his  admi 
ration  of  a  hero,  fails  to  see  that  it  is  only  a  pro 
jection  of  his  own  soul  which  he  admires.1  In 
solitude,  in  a  remote  village,  the  ardent  youth 
loiters  and  mourns.  With  inflamed  eye,  in  this 
sleeping  wilderness,  he  has  read  the  story  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth,  until  his  fancy  has 
brought  home  to  the  surrounding  woods  the 
faint  roar  of  cannonades  in  the  Milanese,  and 
marches  in  Germany.  He  is  curious  concerning 
that  man's  day.  What  filled  it  ?  the  crowded 
orders,  the  stern  decisions,  the  foreign  despatches, 


LITERARY  ETHICS  163 

the  Castilian  etiquette  ?  The  soul  answers  — 
Behold  his  day  here  !  In  the  sighing  of  these 
woods,  in  the  quiet  of  these  gray  fields,  in  the 
cool  breeze  that  sings  out  of  these  northern 
mountains  ;  in  the  workmen,  the  boys,  the  maid 
ens  you  meet,  —  in  the  hopes  of  the  morn 
ing,  the  ennui  of  noon,  and  sauntering  of  the 
afternoon  ;  in  the  disquieting  comparisons  ;  in 
the  regrets  at  want  of  vigor ;  in  the  great  idea 
and  the  puny  execution  ;  —  behold  Charles  the 
Fifth's  day;  another,  yet  the  same;  behold  Chat 
ham's,  Hampden's,  Bayard's,  Alfred's,  Scipio's, 
Pericles's  day,  —  day  of  all  that  are  born  of  wo 
men.  The  difference  of  circumstance  is  merely 
costume.  I  am  tasting  the  self-same  life,  —  its 
sweetness,  its  greatness,  its  pain,  which  I  so  ad 
mire  in  other  men.  Do  not  foolishly  ask  of  the 
inscrutable,  obliterated  past,  what  it  cannot  tell, 
—  the  details  of  that  nature,  of  that  day,  called 
Byron,  or  Burke  ;  —  but  ask  it  of  the  envelop 
ing  Now ;  the  more  quaintly  you  inspect  its 
evanescent  beauties,  its  wonderful  details,  its 
spiritual  causes,  its  astounding  whole, — so  much 
the  moreyou  master  the  biography  of  this  hero, 
and  that,  and  every  hero.  Be  lord  of  a  day, 
through  wisdom  and  justice,  and  you  can  put  up 
your  history  books.1 


164  LITERARY  ETHICS 

An  intimation  of  these  broad  rights  is  familiar 
in  the  sense  of  injury  which  men  feel  in  the  as 
sumption  of  any  man  to  limit  their  possible  pro 
gress.  We  resent  all  criticism  which  denies  us 
anything  that  lies  in  our  line  of  advance.  Say 
to  the  man  of  letters  that  he  cannot  paint  a 
Transfiguration,  or  build  a  steamboat,  or  be  a 
grand-marshal,  —  and  he  will  not  seem  to  him 
self  depreciated.  But  deny  to  him  any  quality 
of  literary  or  metaphysical  power,  and  he  is 
piqued.  Concede  to  him  genius,  which  is  a  sort 
of  Stoical  plenum  annulling  the  comparative,  and 
he  is  content ;  but  concede  him  talents  never  so 
rare,  denying  him  genius,  and  he  is  aggrieved. 
What  does  this  mean  ?  Why  simply  that  the  soul 
has  assurance,  by  instincts  and  presentiments, 
of  all  power  in  the  direction  of  its  ray,  as  well 
as  of  the  special  skills  it  has  already  acquired. 

In  order  to  a  knowledge  of  the  resources  of 
the  scholar,  we  must  not  rest  in  the  use  of  slen 
der  accomplishments,  —  of  faculties  to  do  this 
and  that  other  feat  with  words  ;  but  we  must  pay 
our  vows  to  the  highest  power,  and  pass,  if  it 
be  possible,  by  assiduous  love  and  watching,  into 
the  visions  of  absolute  truth.  The  growth  of 
the  intellect  is  strictly  analogous  in  all  indi 
viduals.  It  is  larger  reception.  Able  men,  in 


LITERARY  ETHICS  165 

general,  have  good  dispositions,  and  a  respect 
for  justice ;  because  an  able  man  is  nothing  else 
than  a  good,  free,  vascular  organization,  where- 
into  the  universal  spirit  freely  flows  ;  so  that  his 
fund  of  justice  is  not  only  vast,  but  infinite.  All 
men,  in  the  abstract,  are  just  and  good ;  what 
hinders  them  in  the  particular  is  the  momentary 
predominance  of  the  finite  and  individual  over 
the  general  truth.  The  condition  of  our  incar 
nation  in  a  private  self  seems  to  be  a  perpetual 
tendency  to  prefer  the  private  law,  to  obey  the 
private  impulse,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  law  of 
universal  being.  The  hero  is  great  by  means 
of  the  predominance  of  the  universal  nature; 
he  has  only  to  open  his  mouth,  and  it  speaks  ; 
he  has  only  to  be  forced  to  act,  and  it  acts.  All 
men  catch  the  word,  or  embrace  the  deed,  with 
the  heart,  for  it  is  verily  theirs  as  much  as  his ; 
but  in  them  this  disease  of  an  excess  of  organi 
zation  cheats  them  of  equal  issues.  Nothing  is 
more  simple  than  greatness;  indeed,  to  be  sim 
ple  is  to  be  great.  The  vision  of  genius  comes 
by  renouncing  the  too  officious  activity  of  the 
understanding,  and  giving  leave  and  amplest 
privilege  to  the  spontaneous  sentiment.  Out  of 
this  must  all  that  is  alive  and  genial  in  thought 
go.  Men  grind  and  grind  in  the  mill  of  a  tru- 


166  LITERARY  ETHICS 

ism,  and  nothing  comes  out  but  what  was  put 
in.  But  the  moment  they  desert  the  tradition 
for  a  spontaneous  thought,  then  poetry,  wit, 
hope,  virtue,  learning,  anecdote,  all  flock  to  their 
aid.  Observe  the  phenomenon  of  extempore  de 
bate.  A  man  of  cultivated  mind  but  reserved 
habits,  sitting  silent,  admires  the  miracle  of  free, 
impassioned,  picturesque  speech,  in  the  man 
addressing  an  assembly  ; — -a  state  of  being  and 
power  how  unlike  his  own  ! '  Presently  his  own 
emotion  rises  to  his  lips,  and  overflows  in  speech. 
He  must  also  rise  and  say  somewhat.  Once  em 
barked,  once  having  overcome  the  novelty  of 
the  situation,  he  finds  it  just  as  easy  and  nat 
ural  to  speak,  —  to  speak  with  thoughts,  with 
pictures,  with  rhythmical  balance  of  sentences, 
-  as  it  was  to  sit  silent ;  for  it  needs  not  to  do, 
but  to  suffer ;  he  only  adjusts  himself  to  the  free 
spirit  which  gladly  utters  itself  through  him  ; 
and  motion  is  as  easy  as  rest. 

II.  I  pass  now  to  consider  the  task  offered 
to  the  intellect  of  this  country.  The  view  I 
have  taken  of  the  resources  of  the  scholar,  pre 
supposes  a  subject  as  broad.  We  do  not  seem 
to  have  imagined  its  riches.  We  have  not 
heeded  the  invitation  it  holds  out.  To  be  as 


LITERARY  ETHICS  167 

good  a  scholar  as  Englishmen  are,  to  have  as 
much  learning  as  our  contemporaries,  to  have 
written  a  book  that  is  read,  satisfies  us.  We 
assume  that  all  thought  is  already  long  ago 
adequately  set  down  in  books,  —  all  imagina 
tions  in  poems  ;  and  what  we  say  we  only  throw 
in  as  confirmatory  of  this  supposed  complete 
body  of  literature.  A  very  shallow  assumption. 
Say  rather  all  literature  is  yet  to  be  written. 
Poetry  has  scarce  chanted  its  first  song.  The 
perpetual  admonition  of  nature  to  us,  is,  l  The 
world  is  new,  untried.  Do  not  believe  the  past. 
I  give  you  the  universe  a  virgin  to-day/ 

By  Latin  and  English  poetry  we  were  born 
and  bred  in  an  oratorio  of  praises  of  nature,  — 
flowers,  birds,  mountains,  sun,  and  moon  ;  —  yet 
the  naturalist  of  this  hour  finds  that  he  knows 
nothing,  by  all  their  poems,  of  any  of  these  fine 
things  ;  that  he  has  conversed  with  the  mere 
surface  and  show  of  them  all ;  and  of  their 
essence,  or  of  their  history,  knowing  nothing. 
Further  inquiry  will  discover  that  nobody,  — 
that  not  these  chanting  poets  themselves,  knew 
anything  sincere  of  these  handsome  natures  they 
so  commended  ;  that  they  contented  themselves 
with  the  passing  chirp  of  a  bird,  that  they  saw 
one  or  two  mornings,  and  listlessly  looked  at 


168  LITERARY  ETHICS 

sunsets,  and  repeated  idly  these  few  glimpses  in 
their  song.  But  go  into  the  forest,  you  shallfind 
all  new  and  undescribed.  The  honking  of  the 
wild  geese  flying  by  night ;  the  thin  note  of 
the  companionable  titmouse  in  the  winter  day ; 
the  fall  of  swarms  of  flies,  in  autumn,  from  com 
bats  high  in  the  air,  pattering  down  on  the  leaves 
like  rain  ;  the  angry  hiss  of  the  wood-birds ; 
the  pine  throwing  out  its  pollen  for  the  benefit 
of  the  next  century  ;  the  turpentine  exuding 
from  the  tree ;  —  and  indeed  any  vegetation,  any 
animation,  any  and  all,  are  alike  unattempted. 
The  man  who  stands  on  the  seashore,  or  who 
rambles  in  the  woods,  seems  to  be  the  first  man 
that  ever  stood  on  the  shore,  or  entered  a  grove, 
his  sensations  and  his  world  are  so  novel  and 
strange.1  Whilst  I  read  the  poets,  I  think  that 
nothing  new  can  be  said  about  morning  and 
evening.  But  when  I  see  the  daybreak  I  am  not 
reminded  of  these  Homeric,  or  Shakspearian, 
or  Miltonic,  or  Chaucerian  pictures.  No,  but  I 
feel  perhaps  the  pain  of  an  alien  world  ;  a  world 
not  yet  subdued  by  the  thought ;  or  I  am 
cheered  by  the  moist,  warm,  glittering,  budding, 
melodious  hour,  that  takes  down  the  narrow 
walls  of  my  soul,  and  extends  its  life  and  pulsa 
tion  to  the  very  horizon.  That  is  morning,  to 


LITERARY  ETHICS  169 

cease  for  a  bright  hour  to  be  a  prisoner  of  this 
sickly  body,  and  to  become  as  large  as  nature. 

The  noonday  darkness  of  the  American  for 
est,  the  deep,  echoing,  aboriginal  woods,  where 
the  living  columns  of  the  oak  and  fir  tower  up 
from  the  ruins  of  the  trees  of  the  last  millen 
nium  ;  where,  from  year  to  year,  the  eagle  and 
the  crow  see  no  intruder;  the  pines,  bearded 
with  savage  moss,  yet  touched  with  grace  by  the 
violets  at  their  feet ;  the  broad,  cold  lowland 
which  forms  its  coat  of  vapor  with  the  stillness 
of  subterranean  crystallization ;  and  where  the 
traveller,  amid  the  repulsive  plants  that  are  na 
tive  in  the  swamp,  thinks  with  pleasing  terror  of 
the  distant  town ;  this  beauty,  —  haggard  and 
desert  beauty,  which  the  sun  and  the  moon,  the 
snow  and  the  rain,  repaint  and  vary,  has  never 
been  recorded  by  art,  yet  is  not  indifferent  to 
any  passenger.  All  men  are  poets  at  heart. 
They  serve  nature  for  bread,  but  her  loveliness 
overcomes  them  sometimes.  What  mean  these 
journeys  to  Niagara ;  these  pilgrims  to  the 
White  Hills  ?  Men  believe  in  the  adaptations 
of  utility,  always :  in  the  mountains,  they  may 
believe  in  the  adaptations  of  the  eye.  Un 
doubtedly  the  changes  of  geology  have  a  rela 
tion  to  the  prosperous  sprouting  of  the  corn 


iyo  LITERARY  ETHICS 

and  peas  in  my  kitchen  garden  ;  but  not  less  is 
there  a  relation  of  beauty  between  my  soul  and 
the  dim  crags  of  Agiochook  up  there  in  the 
clouds.  Every  man,  when  this  is  told,  hearkens 
with  joy,  and  yet  his  own  conversation  with  na 
ture  is  still  unsung. 

Is  it  otherwise  with  civil  history  ?  Is  it  not 
the  lesson  of  our  experience  that  every  man, 
were  life  long  enough,  would  write  history  for 
himself?  What  else  do  these  volumes  of  ex 
tracts  and  manuscript  commentaries,  that  every 
scholar  writes,  indicate  ?  Greek  history  is  one 
thing  to  me  ;  another  to  you.  Since  the  birth 
of  Niebuhr  and  Wolf,  Roman  and  Greek  his 
tory  have  been  written  anew.  Since  Carlyle 
wrote  French  History,  we  see  that  no  history 
that  we  have  is  safe,  but  a  new  classifier  shall 
give  it  new  and  more  philosophical  arrange 
ment.  Thucydides,  Livy,  have  only  provided 
materials.  The  moment  a  man  of  genius  pro 
nounces  the  name  of  the  Pelasgi,  of  Athens,  of 
the  Etrurian,  of  the  Roman  people,  we  see  their 
state  under  a  new  aspect.  As  in  poetry  and 
history,  so  in  the  other  departments.  There 
are  few  masters  or  none.  Religion  is  yet  to  be 
settled  on  its  fast  foundations  in  the  breast  of 
man  ;  and  politics,  and  philosophy,  and  letters, 


LITERARY  ETHICS  171 

and  art.     As  yet  we  have  nothing  but  tendency 
and  indication. 

This  starting,  this  warping  of  the  best  literary 
works  from  the  adamant  of  nature,  is  especially 
observable  in  philosophy.  Let  it  take  what  tone 
of  pretension  it  will,  to  this  complexion  must 
it  come,  at  last.  Take  for  example  the  French 
Eclecticism,  which  Cousin  esteems  so  conclu 
sive  ;  there  is  an  optical  illusion  in  it.  It  avows 
great  pretensions.  It  looks  as  if  they  had  all 
truth,  in  taking  all  the  systems,  and  had  nothing 
to  do  but  to  sift  and  wash  and  strain,  and  the 
gold  and  diamonds  would  remain  in  the  last 
colander.  But  Truth  is  such  a  fly-away,  such  a 
slyboots,  so  untransportable  and  unbarrelable 
a  commodity,  that  it  is  as  bad  to  catch  as  light. 
Shut  the  shutters  never  so  quick  to  keep  all  the 
light  in,  it  is  all  in  vain ;  it  is  gone  before  you 
can  cry,  Hold.  And  so  it  happens  with  our  phi 
losophy.  Translate,  collate,  distil  all  the  sys 
tems,  it  steads  you  nothing  ;  for  truth  will  not 
be  compelled  in  any  mechanical  manner.  But 
the  first  observation  you  make,  in  the  sincere 
act  of  your  nature,  though  on  the  veriest  trifle, 
may  open  a  new  view  of  nature  and  of  man, 
that,  like  a  menstruum,  shall  dissolve  all  theo 
ries  in  it ;  shall  take  up  Greece,  Rome,  Stoi- 


172  LITERARY  ETHICS 

cism,  Eclecticism,  and  what  not,  as  mere  data 
and  food  for  analysis,  and  dispose  of  your  world- 
containing  system  as  a  very  little  unit.  A  pro 
found  thought,  anywhere,  classifies  all  things  :  a 
profound  thought  will  lift  Olympus.  The  book 
of  philosophy  is  only  a  fact,  and  no  more  in 
spiring  fact  than  another,  and  no  less  ;  but  a 
wise  man  will  never  esteem  it  anything  final  and 
transcending.  Go  and  talk  with  a  man  of  gen 
ius,  and  the  first  word  he  utters,  sets  all  your 
so-called  knowledge  afloat  and  at  large.  Then 
Plato,  Bacon,  Kant,  and  the  Eclectic  Cousin 
condescend  instantly  to  be  men  and  mere  facts.1 
I  by  no  means  aim  in  these  remarks  to  dis 
parage  the  merit  of  these  or  of  any  existing 
compositions  ;  I  only  say  that  any  particular 
portraiture  does  not  in  any  manner  exclude  or 
forestall  a  new  attempt,  but,  when  considered 
by  the  soul,  warps  and  shrinks  away.  The  in 
undation  of  the  spirit  sweeps  away  before  it 
all  our  little  architecture  of  wit  and  memory, 
as  straws  and  straw-huts  before  the  torrent.2 
Works  of  the  intellect  are  great  only  by  com 
parison  with  each  other ;  Ivanhoe  and  Waver- 
ley  compared  with  Castle  RadclifFe  and  the  Por 
ter  novels  ;  but  nothing  is  great,  —  not  mighty 
Homer  and  Milton,  —  beside  the  infinite  Rea- 


LITERARY  ETHICS  173 

son.    It  carries  them  away  as  a  flood.   They  are 
as  a  sleep. 

Thus  is  justice  done  to  each  generation  and 
individual,  —  wisdom  teaching  man  that  he  shall 
not  hate,  or  fear,  or  mimic  his  ancestors ;  that 
he  shall  not  bewail  himself,  as  if  the  world  was 
old,  and  thought  was  spent,  and  he  was  born 
into  the  dotage  of  things ;  for,  by  virtue  of  the 
Deity,  thought  renews  itself  inexhaustibly  every 
day,  and  the  thing  whereon  it  shines,  though  it 
were  dust  and  sand,  is  a  new  subject  with  count 
less  relations. 

III.  Having  thus  spoken  of  the  resources 
and  the  subject  of  the  scholar,  out  of  the  same 
faith  proceeds  also  the  rule  of  his  ambition  and 
life.  Let  him  know  that  the  world  is  his,  but 
he  must  possess  it  by  putting  himself  into  har 
mony  with  the  constitution  of  things.  He  must 
be  a  solitary,  laborious,  modest,  and  charitable 
soul. 

He  must  embrace  solitude  as  a  bride.  He 
must  have  his  glees  and  his  glooms  alone.  His 
own  estimate  must  be  measure  enough,  his  own 
praise  reward  enough  for  him.1  And  why  must 
the  student  be  solitary  and  silent  ?  That  he  may 
become  acquainted  with  his  thoughts.  If  he 


i74  LITERARY  ETHICS 

pines  in  a  lonely  place,  hankering  for  the  crowd, 
for  display,  he  is  not  in  the  lonely  place  ;  his 
heart  is  in  the  market ;  he  does  not  see ;  he 
does  not  hear ;  he  does  not  think.  But  go  cher 
ish  your  soul ;  expel  companions ;  set  your 
habits  to  a  life  of  solitude  ;  then  will  the  facul 
ties  rise  fair  and  full  within,  like  forest  trees 
and  field  flowers  ;  you  will  have  results,  which, 
when  you  meet  your  fellow-men,  you  can  com 
municate,  and  they  will  gladly  receive.  Do  not 
go  into  solitude  only  that  you  may  presently 
come  into  public.  Such  solitude  denies  itself; 
is  public  and  stale.  The  public  can  get  public 
experience,  but  they  wish  the  scholar  to  replace 
to  them  those  private,  sincere,  divine  experi 
ences  of  which  they  have  been  defrauded  by 
dwelling  in  the  street.  It  is  the  noble,  manlike, 
just  thought,  which  is  the  superiority  demanded 
of  you,  and  not  crowds  but  solitude  confers  this 
elevation.  Not  insulation  of  place,  but  inde 
pendence  of  spirit  is  essential,  and  it  is  only  as 
the  garden,  the  cottage,  the  forest,  and  the  rock, 
are  a  sort  of  mechanical  aids  to  this,  that  they 
are  of  value.  Think  alone,  and  all  places  are 
friendly  and  sacred.  The  poets  who  have  lived 
in  cities  have  been  hermits  still.  Inspiration 
makes  solitude  anywhere.  Pindar,  Raphael, 


LITERARY  ETHICS  175 

Angelo,  Dryden,  De  Stael,  dwell  in  crowds  it 
may  be,  but  the  instant  thought  comes  the  crowd 
grows  dim  to  their  eye ;  their  eye  fixes  on  the 
horizon,  on  vacant  space ;  they  forget  the  by 
standers  ;  they  spurn  personal  relations;  they 
deal  with  abstractions,  with  verities,  with  ideas. 
They  are  alone  with  the  mind. 

Of  course  I  would  not  have  any  superstition 
about  solitude.  Let  the  youth  study  the  uses 
of  solitude  and  of  society.  Let  him  use  both, 
noi  serve  either.  The  reason  why  an  ingenious 
soul  shuns  society,  is  to  the  end  of  finding  soci 
ety.  It  repudiates  the  false,  out  of  love  of  the 
true.  You  can  very  soon  learn  all  that  society 
can  teach  you  for  one  while.1  Its  foolish  rou 
tine,  an  indefinite  multiplication  of  balls,  con 
certs,  rides,  theatres,  can  teach  you  no  more 
than  a  few  can.  Then  accept  the  hint  of  shame, 
of  spiritual  emptiness  and  waste  which  true  na 
ture  gives  you,  and  retire  and  hide;  lock  the 
door ;  shut  the  shutters  ;  then  welcome  falls  the 
imprisoning  rain,  —  dear  hermitage  of  nature. 
Re-collect  the  spirits.  Have  solitary  prayer  and 
praise.  Digest  and  correct  the  past  experience  ; 
and  blend  it  with  the  new  and  divine  life. 

You  will  pardon  me,  Gentlemen,  if  I  say  I 
think  that  we  have  need  of  a  more  rigorous 


176  LITERARY  ETHICS 

scholastic  rule  ;  such  an  asceticism,  I  mean,  as 
only  the  hardihood  and  devotion  of  the  scholar 
himself  can  enforce.  We  live  in  the  sun  and  on 
the  surface,  —  a  thin,  plausible,  superficial  ex 
istence,  and  talk  of  muse  and  prophet,  of  art 
and  creation.  But  out  of  our  shallow  and  friv 
olous  way  of  life,  how  can  greatness  ever  grow  ? 
Come  now,  let  us  go  and  be  dumb.  Let  us  sit 
with  our  hands  on  our  mouths,  a  long,  austere, 
Pythagorean  lustrum.  Let  us  live  in  corners, 
and  do  chores,  and  suffer,  and  weep,  and  drudge, 
with  eyes  and  hearts  that  love  the  Lord.  Silence, 
seclusion,  austerity,  may  pierce  deep  into  the 
grandeur  and  secret  of  our  being,  and  so  diving, 
bring  up  out  of  secular  darkness  the  sublimi 
ties  of  the  moral  constitution.  How  mean  to 
go  blazing,  a  gaudy  butterfly,  in  fashionable  or 
political  salons,  the  fool  of  society,  the  fool  of 
notoriety,  a  topic  for  newspapers,  a  piece  of  the 
street,  and  forfeiting  the  real  prerogative  of  the 
russet  coat,  the  privacy,  and  the  true  and  warm 
heart  of  the  citizen  ! 

Fatal  to  the  man  of  letters,  fatal  to  man,  is  the 
lust  of  display,  the  seeming  that  unmakes  our 
being.  A  mistake  of  the  main  end  to  which 
they  labor  is  incident  to  literary  men,  who,  deal 
ing  with  the  organ  of  language,  —  the  subtlest, 


LITERARY  ETHICS  177 

strongest,  and  longest-lived  of  man's  creations, 
and  only  fitly  used  as  the  weapon  of  thought 
and  of  justice,  —  learn  to  enjoy  the  pride  of 
playing  with  this  splendid  engine,  but  rob  it  of 
its  almightiness  by  failing  to  work  with  it.  Ex 
tricating  themselves  from  the  tasks  of  the  world, 
the  world  revenges  itself  by  exposing,  at  every 
turn,  the  folly  of  these  incomplete,  pedantic, 
useless,  ghostly  creatures.  The  scholar  will  feel 
that  the  richest  romance,  the  noblest  fiction 
that  was  ever  woven,  the  heart  and  soul  of 
beauty,  lies  enclosed  in  human  life.  Itself  of 
surpassing  value,  it  is  also  the  richest  material 
for  his  creations.  How  shall  he  know  its  se 
crets  of  tenderness,  of  terror,  of  will,  and  of 
fate  ?  How  can  he  catch  and  keep  the  strain 
of  upper  music  that  peals  from  it  ?  Its  laws  are 
concealed  under  the  details  of  daily  action.  All 
action  is  an  experiment  upon  them.  He  must 
bear  his  share  of  the  common  load.  He  must 
work  with  men  in  houses,  and  not  with  their 
names  in  books.  His  needs,  appetites,  talents, 
affections,  accomplishments,  are  keys  that  open 
to  him  the  beautiful  museum  of  human  life. 
Why  should  he  read  it  as  an  Arabian  tale,  and 
not  know,  in  his  own  beating  bosom,  its  sweet 
and  smart  ?  Out  of  love  and  hatred,  out  of 


178  LITERARY  ETHICS 

earnings,  and  borrowings,  and  landings,  and 
losses  ;  out  of  sickness  and  pain ;  out  of  woo 
ing  and  worshipping  ;  out  of  travelling,  and  vot 
ing,  and  watching,  and  caring ;  out  of  disgrace 
and  contempt,  comes  our  tuition  in  the  serene 
and  beautiful  laws.  Let  him  not  slur  his  les 
son  ;  let  him  learn  it  by  heart.  Let  him  en 
deavor  exactly,  bravely,  and  cheerfully,  to  solve 
the  problem  of  that  life  which  is  set  before  him. 
And  this  by  punctual  action,  and  not  by  pro 
mises  or  dreams.  Believing,  as  in  God,  in  the 
presence  and  favor  of  the  grandest  influences, 
let  him  deserve  that  favor,  and  learn  how  to  re 
ceive  and  use  it,  by  fidelity  also  to  the  lower 
observances. 

This  lesson  is  taught  with  emphasis  in  the 
life  of  the  great  actor  of  this  age,  and  affords 
the  explanation  of  his  success.  Bonaparte  repre 
sents  truly  a  great  recent  revolution,  which  we 
in  this  country,  please  God,  shall  carry  to  its 
farthest  consummation.  Not  the  least  instruc 
tive  passage  in  modern  history  seems  to  me  a 
trait  of  Napoleon  exhibited  to  the  English  when 
he  became  their  prisoner.  On  coming  on  board 
the  Bellerophon,  a  file  of  English  soldiers 
drawn  up  on  deck  gave  him  a  military  salute. 
Napoleon  observed  that  their  manner  of  han- 


LITERARY  ETHICS  .    179 

dling  their  arms  differed  from  the  French  exer 
cise,  and,  putting  aside  the  guns  of  those  nearest 
him,  walked  up  to  a  soldier,  took  his  gun,  and 
himself  went  through  the  motion  in  the  French 
mode.  The  English  officers  and  men  looked  on 
with  astonishment,  and  inquired  if  such  famil 
iarity  was  usual  with  the  Emperor. 

In  this  instance,  as  always,  that  man,  with 
whatever  defects  or  vices,  represented  perform 
ance  in  lieu  of  pretension.  Feudalism  and  Ori 
entalism  had  long  enough  thought  it  majestic 
to  do  nothing ;  the  modern  majesty  consists  in 
work.  He  belonged  to  a  class  fast  growing  in 
the  world,  who  think  that  what  a  man  can  do  is 
his  greatest  ornament,  and  that  he  always  con 
sults  his  dignity  by  doing  it.  He  was  not  a  be 
liever  in  luck ;  he  had  a  faith,  like  sight,  in  the 
application  of  means  to  ends.  Means  to  ends, 
is  the  motto  of  all  his  behavior.  He  believed 
that  the  great  captains  of  antiquity  performed 
their  exploits  only  by  correct  combinations,  and 
by  justly  comparing  the  relation  between  means 
and  consequences,  efforts  and  obstacles.  The 
vulgar  call  good  fortune  that  which  really  is  pro 
duced  by  the  calculations  of  genius.  But  Napo 
leon,  thus  faithful  to  facts,  had  also  this  crowning 
merit,  that  whilst  he  believed  in  number  and 


i8o  .  LITERARY  ETHICS 

weight,  and  omitted  no  part  of  prudence,  he  be 
lieved  also  in  the  freedom  and  quite  incalculable 
force  of  the  soul.  A  man  of  infinite  caution,  he 
neglected  never  the  least  particular  of  prepara 
tion,  of  patient  adaptation  ;  yet  nevertheless  he 
had  a  sublime  confidence,  as  in  his  all,  in  the 
sallies  of  the  courage,  and  the  faith  in  his  destiny, 
which,  at  the  right  moment,  repaired  all  losses, 
and  demolished  cavalry,  infantry,  king,  and  kai- 
sar,  as  with  irresistible  thunderbolts.  As  they 
say  the  bough  of  the  tree  has  the  character  of 
the  leaf,  and  the  whole  tree  of  the  bough,  so,  it 
is  curious  to  remark,  Bonaparte's  army  partook 
of  this  double  strength  of  the  captain;  for,  whilst 
strictly  supplied  in  all  its  appointments,  and 
everything  expected  from  the  valor  and  disci 
pline  of  every  platoon,  in  flank  and  centre,  yet 
always  remained  his  total  trust  in  the  prodigious 
revolutions  of  fortune  which  his  reserved  Impe 
rial  Guard  were  capable  of  working,  if,  in  all  else, 
the  day  was  lost.  Here  he  was  sublime.  He  no 
longer  calculated  the  chance  of  the  cannon  ball. 
He  was  faithful  to  tactics  to  the  uttermost, — 
and  when  all  tactics  had  come  to  an  end  then  he 
dilated  and  availed  himself  of  the  mighty  salta 
tions  of  the  most  formidable  soldiers  in  nature. 
Let  the  scholar  appreciate  this  combination 


LITERARY  ETHICS  181 

of  gifts,  which,  applied  to  better  purpose,  make 
true  wisdom.  He  is  a  revealer  of  things.  Let 
him  first  learn  the  things.  Let  him  not,  too 
eager  to  grasp  some  badge  of  reward,  omit  the 
work  to  be  done.  Let  him  know  that  though 
the  success  of  the  market  is  in  the  reward,  true 
success  is  the  doing;  that,  in  the  private  obedi 
ence  to  his  mind ;  in  the  sedulous  inquiry,  day 
after  day,  year  after  year,  to  know  how  the  thing 
stands ;  in  the  use  of  all  means,  and  most  in  the 
reverence  of  the  humble  commerce  and  humble 
needs  of  life,  —  to  hearken  what  they  say,  and 
so,  by  mutual  reaction  of  thought  and  life,  to 
make  thought  solid,  and  life  wise ;  and  in  a  con 
tempt  for  the  gabble  of  to-day's  opinions  the 
secret  of  the  world  is  to  be  learned,  and  the  skill 
truly  to  unfold  it  is  acquired.  Or,  rather,  is  it 
not,  that,  by  this  discipline,  the  usurpation  of 
the  senses  is  overcome,  and  the  lower  faculties 
of  man  are  subdued  to  docility ;  through  which 
as  an  unobstructed  channel  the  soul  now  easily 
and  gladly  flows  ? 

The  good  scholar  will  not  refuse  to  bear  the 
yoke  in  his  youth ;  to  know,  if  he  can,  the  ut 
termost  secret  of  toil  and  endurance ;  to  make 
his  own  hands  acquainted  with  the  soil  by  which 
he  is  fed,  and  the  sweat  that  goes  before  comfort 


182  LITERARY  ETHICS 

and  luxury.  Let  him  pay  his  tithe  and  serve  the 
world  as  a  true  and  noble  man ;  never  forgetting 
to  worship  the  immortal  divinities  who  whisper 
to  the  poet  and  make  him  the  utterer  of  melo 
dies  that  pierce  the  ear  of  eternal  time.  If  he 
have  this  twofold  goodness,  —  the  drill  and  the 
inspiration,  —  then  he  has  health  ;  then  he  is  a 
whole,  and  not  a  fragment ;  and  the  perfection 
of  his  endowment  will  appear  in  his  composi 
tions.  Indeed,  this  twofold  merit  characterizes 
ever  the  productions  of  great  masters.  The  man 
of  genius  should  occupy  the  whole  space  between 
God  or  pure  mind  and  the  multitude  of  uned 
ucated  men.  He  must  draw  from  the  infinite 
Reason,  on  one  side ;  and  he  must  penetrate 
into  the  heart  and  sense  of  the  crowd,  on  the 
other.  From  one,  he  must  draw  his  strength ; 
to  the  other,  he  must  owe  his  aim.  The  one 
yokes  him  to  the  real ;  the  other,  to  the  appar 
ent.  At  one  pole  is  Reason;  at  the  other,  Com 
mon  Sense.  If  he  be  defective  at  either  extreme 
of  the  scale,  his  philosophy  will  seem  low  and 
utilitarian,  or  it  will  appear  too  vague  and  indefi 
nite  for  the  uses  of  life.1 

The  student,  as  we  all  along  insist,  is  great 
only  by  being  passive  to  the  superincumbent 
spirit.  Let  this  faith  then  dictate  all  his  ac- 


LITERARY  ETHICS  183 

tion.  Snares  and  bribes  abound  to  mislead  him  ; 
let  him  be  true  nevertheless.  His  success  has 
its  perils  too.  There  is  somewhat  inconven 
ient  and  injurious  in  his  position.  They  whom 
his  thoughts  have  entertained  or  inflamed,  seek 
him  before  yet  they  have  learned  the  hard  con 
ditions  of  thought.  They  seek  him,  that  he  may 
turn  his  lamp  on  the  dark  riddles  whose  solu 
tion  they  think  is  inscribed  on  the  walls  of  their 
being.  They  find  that  he  is  a  poor,  ignorant 
man,  in  a  white-seamed,  rusty  coat,  like  them 
selves,  nowise  emitting  a  continuous  stream  of 
light,  but  now  and  then  a  jet  of  luminous  thought 
followed  by  total  darkness  ;  moreover,  that  he 
cannot  make  of  his  infrequent  illumination  a 
portable  taper  to  carry  whither  he  would,  and 
explain  now  this  dark  riddle,  now  that.  Sorrow 
ensues.  The  scholar  regrets  to  damp  the  hope 
of  ingenuous  boys ;  and  the  youth  has  lost  a 
star  out  of  his  new  flaming  firmament.  Hence 
the  temptation  to  the  scholar  to  mystify,  to  hear 
the  question,  to  sit  upon  it,  to  make  an  answer 
of  words  in  lack  of  the  oracle  of  things.  Not 
the  less  let  him  be  cold  and  true,  and  wait  in 
patience,  knowing  that  truth  can  make  even  si 
lence  eloquent  and  memorable.  Truth  shall  be 
policy  enough  for  him.  Let  him  open  his  breast 


1 84  LITERARY  ETHICS 

to  all  honest  inquiry,  and  be  an  artist  superior 
to  tricks  of  art.  Show  frankly  as  a  saint  would 
do,  your  experience,  methods,  tools,  and  means. 
Welcome  all  comers  to  the  freest  use  of  the 
same.  And  out  of  this  superior  frankness  and 
charity  you  shall  learn  higher  secrets  of  your 
nature,  which  gods  will  bend  and  aid  you  to 
communicate. 

If,  with  a  high  trust,  he  can  thus  submit  him 
self,  he  will  find  that  ample  returns  are  poured 
into  his  bosom  out  of  what  seemed  hours  of 
obstruction  and  loss.  Let  him  not  grieve  too 
much  on  account  of  unfit  associates.  When  he 
sees  how  much  thought  he  owes  to  the  dis 
agreeable  antagonism  of  various  persons  who 
pass  and  cross  him,  he  can  easily  think  that  in 
a  society  of  perfect  sympathy,  no  word,  no  act, 
no  record,  would  be.  He  will  learn  that  it  is 
not  much  matter  what  he  reads,  what  he  does. 
Be  a  scholar,  and  he  shall  have  the  scholar's 
part  of  everything.  As  in  the- counting-room 
the  merchant  cares  little  whether  the  cargo  be 
hides  or  barilla  ;  the  transaction,  a  letter  of  credit 
or  a  transfer  of  stocks  ;  be  it  what  it  may,  his 
commission  comes  gently  out  of  it;  so  you  shall 
get  your  lesson  out  of  the  hour,  and  the  object, 
whether  it  be  a  concentrated  or  a  wasteful  em- 


LITERARY  ETHICS  185 

ployment,  even  in  reading  a  dull  book,  or  work 
ing  off  a  stint  of  mechanical  day-labor  which 
your  necessities  or  the  necessities  of  others  im 
pose. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  ventured  to  offer  you  these 
considerations  upon  the  scholar's  place  and  hope, 
because  I  thought  that  standing,  as  many  of  you 
now  do,  on  the  threshold  of  this  College,  girt 
and  ready  to  go  and  assume  tasks,  public  and 
private,  in  your  country,  you  would  not  be  sorry 
to  be  admonished  of  those  primary  duties  of  the 
intellect  whereof  you  will  seldom  hear  from  the 
lips  of  your  new  companions.  You  will  hear 
every  day  the  maxims  of  a  low  prudence.  You 
will  hear  that  the  first  duty  is  to  get  land  and 
money,  place  and  name.  c  What  is  this  Truth 
you  seek  ?  what  is  this  Beauty  ?  '  men  will  ask, 
with  derision.  If  nevertheless  God  have  called 
any  of  you  to  explore  truth  and  beauty,  be  bold, 
be  firm,  be  true.  When  you  shall  say,  c  As 
others  do,  so  will  I :  I  renounce,  I  am  sorry  for  it, 
my  early  visions  ;  I  must  eat  the  good  of  the  land 
and  let  learning  and  romantic  expectations  go, 
until  a  more  convenient  season;' — then  dies 
the  man  in  you ;  then  once  more  perish  the  buds 
of  art,  and  poetry,  and  science,  as  they  have  died 


186  LITERARY  ETHICS 

already  in  a  thousand  thousand  men.  The  hour 
of  that  choice  is  the  crisis  of  your  history,  and 
see  that  you  hold  yourself  fast  by  the  intellect. 
It  is  this  domineering  temper  of  the  sensual 
world  that  creates  the  extreme  need  of  the  priests 
of  science ;  and  it  is  the  office  and  right  of  the 
intellect  to  make  and  not  take  its  estimate. 
Bend  to  the  persuasion  which  is  flowing  to  you 
from  every  object  in  nature,  to  be  its  tongue  to 
the  heart  of  man,  and  to  show  the  besotted 
world  how  passing  fair  is  wisdom.1  Forewarned 
that  the  vice  of  the  times  and  the  country  is 
an  excessive  pretension,  let  us  seek  the  shade, 
and  find  wisdom  in  neglect.  Be  content  with  a 
little  light,  so  it  be  your  own.  Explore,  and 
explore.  Be  neither  chided  nor  flattered  out  of 
your  position  of  perpetual  inquiry.  Neither  dog 
matize,  nor  accept  another's  dogmatism.  Why 
should  you  renounce  your  right  to  traverse  the 
star-lit  deserts  of  truth,  for  the  premature  com 
forts  of  an  acre,  house,  and  barn  ?  Truth  also 
has  its  roof,  and  bed,  and  board.  Make  your 
self  necessary  to  the  world,  and  mankind  will 
give  you  bread,  and  if  not  store  of  it,  yet  such 
as  shall  not  take  away  your  property  in  all  men's 
possessions,  in  all  men's  affections,  in  art,  in  na 
ture,  and  in  hope. 


LITERARY  ETHICS  187 

You  will  not  fear  that  I  am  enjoining  too 
stern  an  asceticism.  Ask  not,  Of  what  use  is  a 
scholarship  that  systematically  retreats  ?  or,  Who 
is  the  better  for  the  philosopher  who  conceals  his 
accomplishments,  and  hides  his  thoughts  from 
the  waiting  world  ?  Hides  his  thoughts  !  Hide 
the  sun  and  moon.  Thought  is  all  light,  and 
publishes  itself  to  the  universe.  It  will  speak, 
though  you  were  dumb,  by  its  own  miraculous 
organ.  It  will  flow  out  of  your  actions,  your 
manners,  and  your  face.  It  will  bring  you  friend 
ships.  It  will  impledge  you  to  truth  by  the  love 
and  expectation  of  generous  minds. .  By  virtue 
of  the  laws  of  that  Nature  which  is  one  and  per 
fect,  it  shall  yield  every  sincere  good  that  is  in 
the  soul  to  the  scholar  beloved  of  earth  and 
heaven. 


THE    METHOD    OF    NATURE 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  SOCIETY  OF  THE 

ADELPHI,  IN  WATER VILLE  COLLEGE,  MAINE, 

AUGUST  u,   1841. 


THE    METHOD  OF 
NATURE 

GENTLEMEN  : 

L±T  us  exchange  congratulations  on  the  en 
joyments  and  the  promises  of  this  literary 
anniversary.  The  land  we  live  in  has  no  interest 
so  dear,  if  it  knew  its  want,  as  the  fit  consecra 
tion  of  days  of  reason  and  thought.  Where 
there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish.  The 
scholars  are  the  priests  of  that  thought  which 
establishes  the  foundations  of  the  earth.  No 
matter  what  is  their  special  work  or  profession, 
they  stand  for  the  spiritual  interest  of  the  world, 
and  it  is  a  common  calamity  if  they  neglect  their 
post  in  a  country  where  the  material  interest  is 
so  predominant  as  it  is  in  America.  We  hear 
something  too  much  of  the  results  of  machin 
ery,  commerce,  and  the  useful  arts.  We  are  a 
puny  and  a  fickle  folk.  Avarice,  hesitation,  and 
following,  are  our  diseases.  The  rapid  wealth 
which  hundreds  in  the  community  acquire  in 
trade,  or  by  the  incessant  expansions  of  our  pop 
ulation  and  arts,  enchants  the  eyes  of  all  the 
rest;  the  luck  of  one  is  the  hope  of  thousands, 
and  the  bribe  acts  like  the  neighborhood  of  a 


192        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

gold  mine  to  impoverish  the  farm,  the  school, 
the  church,  the  house,  and  the  very  body  and 
feature  of  man.1 

I  do  not  wish  to  look  with  sour  aspect  at  the 
industrious  manufacturing  village,  or  the  mart 
of  commerce.  I  love  the  music  of  the  water- 
wheel;  I  value  the  railway;  I  feel  the  pride 
which  the  sight  of  a  ship  inspires;  I  look  on 
trade  and  every  mechanical  craft  as  education 
also.  But  let  me  discriminate  what  is  precious 
herein.  There  is  in  each  of  these  works  an  act 
of  invention,  an  intellectual  step,  or  short  series 
of  steps,  taken  ;  that  act  or  step  is  the  spiritual  / 
act ;  all  the  rest  is  mere  repetition  of  the  same 
a  thousand  times.  And  I  will  not  be  deceived 
into  admiring  the  routine  of  handicrafts  and 
mechanics,  how  splendid  soever  the  result,  any 
more  than  I  admire  the  routine  of  the  scholars 
or  clerical  class.  That  splendid  results  ensue 
from  the  labors  of  stupid  men,  is  the  fruit  of 
higher  laws  than  their  will,  and  the  routine  is 
not  to  be  praised  for  it.  I  would  not  have  the 
laborer  sacrificed  to  the  result,  —  I  would  not 
have  the  laborer  sacrificed  to  my  convenience 
and  pride,  nor  to  that  of  a  great  class  of  such  as 
me.  Let  there  be  worse  cotton  and  better  men. 
The  weaver  should  not  be  bereaved  of  his  su- 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        193 

periority  to  his  work,  and  his  knowledge  that 
the  product  or  the  skill  is  of  no  value,  except 
so  far  as  it  embodies  his  spiritual  prerogatives.1 
If  I  see  nothing  to  admire  in  the  unit,  shall  I 
admire  a  million  units  ?  Men  stand  in  awe  of 
the  city,  but  do  not  honor  any  individual  citi 
zen  ;  and  are  continually  yielding  to  this  daz 
zling  result  of  numbers,  that  which  they  would 
never  yield  to  the  solitary  example  of  any  one. 

Whilst  the  multitude  of  men  degrade  each  \ 
other,  and  give  currency  to  desponding  doc-  \ 
trines,  the  scholar  must  be  a  bringer  of  hope,  and 
must  reinforce  man  against  himself.  I  some 
times  believe  that  our  literary  anniversaries  will 
presently  assume  a  greater  importance,  as  the 
eyes  of  men  open  to  their  capabilities.  Here,  a 
new  set  of  distinctions,  a  new  order  of  ideas,  pre 
vail.  Here,  we  set  a  bound  to  the  respectability 
of  wealth,  and  a  bound  to  the  pretensions  of  the 
law  and  the  church.  The  bigot  must  cease  to 
be  a  bigot  to-day.  Into  our  charmed  circle, 
power  cannot  enter  ;  and  the  sturdiest  defender 
of  existing  institutions  feels  the  terrific  inflam 
mability  of  this  air  which  condenses  heat  in 
every  corner  that  may  restore  to  the  elements 
the  fabrics  of  ages.  Nothing  solid  is  secure  ; 
everything  tilts  and  rocks.  Even  the  scholar 


i94        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

is  not  safe ;  he  too  is  searched  and  revised.  Is 
his  learning  dead  ?  Is  he  living  in  his  mem 
ory  ?  The  power  of  mind  is  not  mortification, 
but  life.  But  come  forth,  thou  curious  child  ! 
hither,  thou  loving,  all-hoping  poet !  hither, 
thou  tender,  doubting  heart,  which  hast  not  yet 
found  any  place  in  the  world's  market  fit  for 
thee  ;  any  wares  which  thou  couldst  buy  or  sell, 
—  so  large  is  thy  love  and  ambition,  —  thine 
and  not  theirs  is  the  hour.  Smooth  thy  brow, 
and  hope  and  love  on,  for  the  kind  Heaven 
justifies  thee,  and  the  whole  world  feels  that 
thou  art  in  the  right. 

We  ought  to  celebrate  this  hour  by  expres 
sions  of  manly  joy.  Not  thanks,  not  prayer 
seem  quite  the  highest  or  truest  name  for  our 
communication  with  the  infinite,  —  but  glad  and 
conspiring  reception,  —  reception  that  becomes 
giving  in  its  turn,  as  the  receiver  is  only  the 
All-Giver  in  part  and  in  infancy.  I  cannot,  — 
nor  can  any  man,  —  speak  precisely  of  things 
so  sublime,  but  it  seems  to  me  the  wit  of  man, 
his  strength,  his  grace,  his  tendency,  his  art,  is 
the  grace  and  the  presence  of  God.  It  is  be 
yond  explanation.  When  all  is  said  and  done, 
the  rapt  saint  is  found  the  only  logician.  Not 
exhortation,  not  argument  becomes  our  lips,  but 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        195 

paeans  of  joy  and  praise.1  But  not  of  adulation  : 
we  are  too  nearly  related  in  the  deep  of  the 
mind  to  that  we  honor.  It  is  God  in  us  which 
checks  the  language  of  petition  by  a  grander 
thought.  In  the  bottom  of  the  heart  it  is  said  ; 
*  I  am,  and  by  me,  O  child  !  this  fair  body  and 
world  of  thine  stands  and  grows.  I  am :  all 
things  are  mine  :  and  all  mine  are  thine/ 

The  festival  of  the  intellect  and  the  return  to 
its  source  cast  a  strong  light  on  the  always  in 
teresting  topics  of  Man  and  Nature.  We  are 
forcibly  reminded  of  the  old  want.  There  is  no 
man;  there  hath  never  been.  The  Intellect  still 
asks  that  a  man  may  be  born.  The  flame  of 
life  flickers  feebly  in  human  breasts.  We  demand 
of  men  a  richness  and  universality  we  do  not 
find.  Great  men  do  not  content  us.  It  is  their 
solitude,  not  their  force,  that  makes  them  con 
spicuous.  There  is  somewhat  indigent  and  tedi 
ous  about  them.  They  are  poorly  tied  to  one 
thought.  If  they  are  prophets  they  are  egotists ; 
if  polite  and  various  they  are  shallow.  How 
tardily  men  arrive  at  any  result !  how  tardily 
they  pass  from  it  to  another !  The  crystal  sphere 
of  thought  is  as  concentrical  as  the  geologi 
cal  structure  of  the  globe.  As  our  soils  and 
rocks  lie  in  strata,  concentric  strata,  so  do  all 


196        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

men's  thinkings  run  laterally,  never  vertically. 
Here  comes  by  a  great  inquisitor  with  auger  and 
plumb-line3and  will  bore  an  Artesian  well  through 
our  conventions  and  theories,  and  pierce  to  the 
core  of  things.  But  as  soon  as  he  probes  the 
crust,  behold  gimlet,  plumb-line,  and  philoso 
pher  take  a  lateral  direction,  in  spite  of  all  resist 
ance,  as  if  some  strong  wind  took  everything  off 
its  feet,  and  if  you  come  month  after  month  to 
see  what  progress  our  reformer  has  made,  —  not 
an  inch  has  he  pierced, —  you  still  find  him  with 
new  words  in  the  old  place,  floating  about  in  new 
parts  of  the  same  old  vein  or  crust.  The  new 
book  says,  c  I  will  give  you  the  key  to  nature/ 
and  we  expect  to  go  like  a  thunderbolt  to  the 
centre.  But  the  thunder  is  a  surface  phenomenon, 
makes  a  skin-deep  cut,  and  so  does  the  sage. 
The  wedge  turns  out  to  be  a  rocket.  Thus  a 
man  lasts  but  a  very  little  while,  for  his  mono 
mania  becomes  insupportably  tedious  in  a  few 
months.  It  is  so  with  every  book  and  person  : 
and  yet  —  and  yet  —  we  do  not  take  up  a  new 
book  or  meet  a  new  man  without  a  pulse-beat 
of  expectation.  And  this  invincible  hope  of  a 
more  adequate  interpreter  is  the  sure  prediction 
of  his  advent.1 

In  the  absence  of  man,  we  turn  to  nature. 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE    197 

which  stands  next.  In  the  divine  order,  intellect 
is  primary ;  nature,  secondary ;  it  is  the  mem 
ory  of  the  mind.  That  which  once  existed  in 
intellect  as  pure  law,  has  now  taken  body  as 
Nature.  It  existed  already  in  the  mind  in  solu 
tion;  now,  it  has  been  precipitated,  and  the  bright 
sediment  is  the  world.  We  can  never  be  quite 
strangers  or  inferiors  in  nature.  It  is  flesh  of 
our  flesh,  and  bone  of  our  bone.  But  we  no 
longer  hold  it  by  the  hand ;  we  have  lost  our  mi 
raculous  power;  our  arm  is  no  more  as  strong  as 
the  frost,  nor  our  will  equivalent  to  gravity  and 
the  elective  attractions.  Yet  we  can  use  nature 
as  a  convenient  standard,  and  the  meter  of  our 
rise  and  fall.  It  has  this  advantage  as  a  witness, 
it  cannot  be  debauched.  When  man  curses, 
nature  still  testifies  to  truth  and  love.  We  may 
therefore  safely  study  the  mind  in  nature,  be 
cause  we  cannot  steadily  gaze  on  it  in  mind ;  as 
we  explore  the  face  of  the  sun  in  a  pool,  when 
our  eyes  cannot  brook  his  direct  splendors. 

It  seems  to  me  therefore  that  it  were  some 
suitable  paean  if  we  should  piously  celebrate  this 
hour  by  exploring  the  method  of  nature.  Let  us 
see  that)  as  nearly  as  we  can,  and  try  how  far  it 
is  transferable  to  the  literary  life.  Every  earnest 
glance  we  give  to  the  realities  around  us,  with 


198        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

intent  to  learn,  proceeds  from  a  holy  impulse, 
and  is  really  songs  of  praise.  What  difference 
can  it  make  whether  it  take  the  shape  of  ex 
hortation;  or  of  passionate  exclamation,  or  of 
scientific  statement  ?  These  are  forms  merely. 
Through  them  we  express,  at  last,  the  fact  that 
God  has  done  thus  or  thus. 

In  treating  a  subject  so  large,  in  which  we 
must  necessarily  appeal  to  the  intuition,  and  aim 
much  more  to  suggest  than  to  describe,  I  know 
it  is  not  easy  to  speak  with  the  precision  attain 
able  on  topics  of  less  scope.  I  do  not  wish  in  at 
tempting  to  paint  a  man,  to  describe  an  air-fed, 
unimpassioned,  impossible  ghost.  My  eyes  and 
ears  are  revolted  by  any  neglect  of  the  physical 
facts,  the  limitations  of  man.  And  yet  one  who 
conceives  the  true  order  of  nature,  and  beholds 
the  visible  as  proceeding  from  the  invisible,  can 
not  state  his  thought  without  seeming  to  those 
who  study  the  physical  laws  to  do  them  some 
injustice.  There  is  an  intrinsic  defect  in  the 
organ.  Language  overstates.  Statements  of  the 
infinite  are  usually  felt  to  be  unjust  to  the  finite, 
and  blasphemous.  Empedocles  undoubtedly 
spoke  a  truth  of  thought,  when  he  said,  "  I  arfi 
God  ;  "  but  the  moment  it  was  out  of  his  mouth 
it  became  a  lie  to  the  ear;  and  the  world  revenged 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        199 

itself  for  the  seeming  arrogance  by  the  good  story 
about  his  shoe.  How  can  I  hope  for  better  hap 
in  my  attempts  to  enunciate  spiritual  facts  ?  Yet 
let  us  hope  that  as  far  as  we  receive  the  truth, 
so  far  shall  we  be  felt  by  every  true  person  to 
say  what  is  just.1 

The  method  of  nature  :  who  could  ever  ana 
lyze  it  ?  That  rushing  stream  will  not  stop  to  be 
observed.  We  can  never  surprise  nature  in  a 
corner ;  never  find  the  end  of  a  thread  •;  never 
tell  where  to  set  the  first  stone.  The  bird  hastens 
to  lay  her  egg :  the  egg  hastens  to  be  a  bird. 

The  wholeness  we  admire  in  the  order  of  they 

^Hin^^«r20'*^^""'"^'""^i'"BHvvBHWiv^Mi£>*>"BaB^j 

world  is  the  result  of  infinite  distribution"."^ ts  ' 

smoothness  is  the  smoothness  of  the  pitch  of 
the  cataract.  Its  permanence  is  a  perpetual  in- 
choation.  Every  natural  fact  is  an  emanation, 
and  that  from  which  it  emanates  is  an  emana 
tion  also,  and  from  every  emanation  is  a  new 
emanation.  If  anything  could  stand  still, it  would 
be  crushed  and  dissipated  by  the  torrent  it  re 
sisted,  and  if  it  were  a  mind,  would  be  crazed ; 
as  insane  persons  are  those  who  hold  fast  to  one 
thought  and  do  not  flow  with  the  course  of  na 
ture.  Not  the  cause,  but  an  ever  novel  effect, 
nature  descends  always  from  above.  It  is  un 
broken  obedience.  The  beauty  of  these  fair 


200        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

objects  is  imported  into  them  from  a  metaphy 
sical  and  eternal  spring.  In  all  animal  and  vege 
table  forms,  the  physiologist  concedes  that  no 
chemistry,  no  mechanics,  can  account  for  the 
facts,  but  a  mysterious  principle  of  life  must  be 
assumed,  which  not  only  inhabits  the  organ  but 
makes  the  organ.1 

How  silent,  how  spacious,  what  room  for  all, 
yet  without  place  to  insert  an  atom  ;  —  in  grace 
ful  succession,  in  equal  fulness,  in  balanced 
beauty,  the  dance  of  the  hours  goes  forward 
still.  Like  an  odor  of  incense,  like  a  strain  of 
music,  like  a  sleep,  it  is  inexact  and  boundless. 
It  will  not  be  dissected,  nor  unravelled,  nor 
shown.  Away,  profane  philosopher !  seekest 
thou  in  nature  the  cause  ?  This  refers  to  that, 
and  that  to  the  next,  and  the  next  to  the  third, 
and  everything  refers.  Thou  must  ask  in  an 
other  mood,  thou  must  feel  it  and  love  it,  thou 
must  behold  it  in  a  spirit  as  grand  as  that  by 
which  it  exists,  ere  thou  canst  know  the  law. 
Known  it  will  not  be,  but  gladly  beloved  and 
enjoyed. 

The  simultaneous  life  throughout  the  whole 
body,  the  equal  serving  of  innumerable  ends 
without  the  least  emphasis  or  preference  to  any, 
but  the  steady  degradation  of  each  to  the  sue- 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE   201 

cess  of  all,  allows  the  understanding  no  place  to 
work.  Nature  can  only  be  conceived  as  existing 
to  a  universal  and  not  to  a  particular  end ;  to  a 
universe  of  ends,  and  not  to  one,  —  a  work  of 
ecstasy,  to  be  represented  by  a  circular  move 
ment,  as  intention  might  be  signified  by  a 
straight  line  of  definite  length.1  Each  effect 
strengthens  every  other.  There  is  no  revolt  in 
all  the  kingdoms  from  the  commonweal :  no 
detachment  of  an  individual.  Hence  the  cath 
olic  character  which  makes  every  leaf  an  ex 
ponent  of  the  world.  When  we  behold  the 
landscape  in  a  poetic  spirit,  we  do  not  reckon 
individuals.  Nature  knows  neither  palm  nor 
oak,  but  only  vegetable  life,  which  sprouts  into 
forests,  and  festoons  the  globe  with  a  garland 
of  grasses  and  vines. 

That  no  single  end  may  be  selected  and  na 
ture  judged  thereby,  appears  from  this,  that  if 
man  himself  be  considered  as  the  end,  and  it  be 
assumed  that  the  final  cause  of  the  world  is  to 
make  holy  or  wise  or  beautiful  men,  we  see  that 
it  has  not  succeeded.  Read  alternately  in  natural 
and  in  civil  history,  a  treatise  of  astronomy,  for 
example,  with  a  volume  of  French  Memoires 
pour  servir.  When  we  have  spent  our  wonder 
in  computing  this  wasteful  hospitality  with 


202        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

which  boon  Nature  turns  off  new  firmaments 
without  end  into  her  wide  common,  as  fast  as 
the  madrepores  make  coral,  —  suns  and  planets 
hospitable  to  souls,  —  and  then  shorten  the  sight 
to  look  into  this  court  of  Louis  Quatorze,  and 
see  the  game  that  is  played  there,  —  duke  and 
marshal,  abbe  and  madame,  —  a  gambling  table 
where  each  is  laying  traps  for  the  other,  where 
the  end  is  ever  by  some  lie  or  fetch  to  outwit 
your  rival  and  ruin  him  with  this  solemn  fop  in 
wig  and  stars,  —  the  king  ;  —  one  can  hardly 
help  asking  if  this  planet  is  a  fair  specimen  of 
the  so  generous  astronomy,  and  if  so,  whether 
the  experiment  have  not  failed,  and  whether  it 
be  quite  worth  while  to  make  more,  and  glut 
the  innocent  space  with  so  poor  an  article.1 

I  think  we  feel  not  much  otherwise  if,  instead 
of  beholding  foolish  nations,  we  take  the  great 
and  wise  men,  the  eminent  souls,  and  narrowly 
inspect  their  biography.  None  of  them  seen  by 
himself,  and  his  performance  compared  with  his 
promise  or  idea,  will  justify  the  cost  of  that 
enormous  apparatus  of  means  by  which  this 
spotted  and  defective  person  was  at  last  pro 
cured. 

To  questions  of  this  sort,  Nature  replies,  c  I 
grow.'  All  is  nascent,  infant.  When  we  are 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        203 

dizzied  with  the  arithmetic  of  the  savant  toiling 
to  compute  the  length  of  her  line,  the  return 
of  her  curve,  we  are  steadied  by  the  perception 
that  a  great  deal  is  doing;  that  all  seems  just 
begun ;  remote  aims  are  in  active  accomplish 
ment.  We  can  point  nowhere  to  anything  final ; 
but  tendency  appears  on  all  hands :  planet,  sys 
tem,  constellation,  total  nature  is  growing  like 
a  field  of  maize  in  July  ;  is  becoming  somewhat 
else  ;  is  in  rapid  metamorphosis.  The  embryo 
does  not  more  strive  to  be  man,  than  yon 
der  burr  of  light  we  call  a  nebula  tends  to  be  a 
ring,  a  comet,  a  globe,  and  parent  of  new  stars. 
Why  should  not  then  these  messieurs  of  Ver 
sailles  strut  and  plot  for  tabourets  and  ribbons^ 
for  a  season,  without  prejudice  to  their  faculty 
to  run  on  better  errands  by  and  by? 

But  Nature  seems  further  to  reply,  c  I  have 
ventured  so  great  a  stake  as  my  success,  in  no 
single  creature.  I  have  not  yet  arrived  at  any 
end.  The  gardener  aims  to  produce  a  fine  peach 
or  pear,  but  my  aim  is  the  health  of  the  whole 
tree,  —  root,  stem,  leaf,  flower,  and  seed,  —  and 
by  no  means  the  pampering  of  a  monstrous 
pericarp  at  the  expense  of  all  the  other  func 
tions.' 

In  short,  the  spirit  and  peculiarity  of  that  im- 


204        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

pression  nature  makes  on  us  is  this,  that  it  does 
not  exist  to  any  one  or  to  any  number  of  par 
ticular  ends,  but  to  numberless  and  endless  bene 
fit  ;  that  there  is  in  it  no  private  will,  no  rebel 
leaf  or  limb,  but  the  whole  is  oppressed  by  one 
superincumbent  tendency,  obeys  that  redun 
dancy  or  excess  of  life  which  in  conscious  beings 
we  call  ecstasy. 

With  this  conception  of  the  genius  or  method 
of  nature,  let  us  go  back  to  man.  It  is  true  he 
pretends  to  give  account  of  himself  to  himself, 
but,  at  last,  what  has  he  to  recite  but  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  Life  not  to  be  described  or  known 
otherwise  than  by  possession  ?  What  account 
can  he  give  of  his  essence  more  than  so  it  was 
to  be  ?  The  royal  reason,  the  Grace  of  God, 
seems  the  only  description  of  our  multiform 
but  ever  -identical  fact.  There  is  virtue,  there  is 
genius,  there  is  success,  or  there  is  not.  There 
is  the  incoming  or  the  receding  of  God  :  that  is 
all  we  can  affirm  ;  and  we  can  show  neither  how 
nor  why.  Self-accusation,  remorse,  and  the  di 
dactic  morals  of  self-denial  and  strife  with  sin,  are 
in  the  view  we  are  constrained  by  our  constitution 
to  take  of  the  fact  seen  from  the  platform  of  ac 
tion;  but  seen  from  the  platform  of  intellection 
there  is  nothing  for  us  but  praise  and  wonder. 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        205 

The  termination  of  the  world  in  a  man  ap 
pears  to  be  the  last  victory  of  intelligence.  The 
universal  does  not  attract  us  until  housed  in  an 
individual.  Who  heeds  the  waste  abyss  of  pos 
sibility  ?  The  ocean  is  everywhere  the  same, 
but  it  has  no  character  until  seen  with  the  shore 
or  the  ship.  Who  would  value  any  number  of 
miles  of  Atlantic  brine  bounded  by  lines  of  lati 
tude  and  longitude  ?  Confine  it  by  granite  rocks, 
let  it  wash  a  shore  where  wise  men  dwell,  and 
it  is  filled  with  expression  ;  and  the  point  of 
greatest  interest  is  where  the  land  and  water 
meet.  So  must  we  admire  in  man  the  form  of 
the  formless,  the  concentration  of  the  vast,  the 
house  of  reason,  the  cave  of  memory.  See  the 
play  of  thoughts  !  what  nimble  gigantic  crea 
tures  are  these  !  what  saurians,  what  palaiotheria 
shall  be  named  with  these  agile  movers  ?  The 
great  Pan  of  old,  who  was  clothed  in  a  leopard 
skin  to  signify  the  beautiful  variety  of  things, 
and  the  firmament,  his  coat  of  stars,  —  was  but 
the  representative  of  thee,  O  rich  and  various 
Man  !  thou  palace  of  sight  and  sound,  carry 
ing  in  thy  senses  the  morning  and  the  night 
and  the  unfathomable  galaxy  ;  in  thy  brain,  the 
geometry  of  the  City  of  God  ;  in  thy  heart, 
the  bower  of  love  and  the  realms  of  right  and 


206        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

wrong.1  An  individual  man  is  a  fruit  which  it 
cost  all  the  foregoing  ages  to  form  and  ripen. 
The  history  of  the  genesis  or  the  old  mytho 
logy  repeats  itself  in  the  experience  of  every 
child.  He  too  is  a  demon  or  god  thrown  into 
a  particular  chaos,  where  he  strives  ever  to  lead 
things  from  disorder  into  order.  Each  individ 
ual  soul  is  such  in  virtue  of  its  being  a  power 
to  translate  the  world  into  some  particular  lan 
guage  of  its  own  ;  if  not  into  a  picture,  a  statue, 
or  a  dance,  —  why,  then,  into  a  trade,  an  art,  a 
science,  a  mode  of  living,  a  conversation,  a  char 
acter,  an  influence.  You  admire  pictures,  but  it 
is  as  impossible  for  you  to  paint  a  right  picture 
as  for  grass  to  bear  apples.  But  when  the  genius 
comes,  it  makes  ringers  :  it  is  pliancy,  and  the 
power  of  transferring  the  affair  in  the  street  into 
oils  and  colors.  Raphael  must  be  born,  and  Sal- 
vator  must  be  born. 

There  is  no  attractiveness  like  that  of  a  new 
man.  The  sleepy  nations  are  occupied  with  their 
political  routine.  England,  France,  and  America 
read  Parliamentary  Debates,  which  no  high  gen 
ius  now  enlivens  ;  and  nobody  will  read  them 
who  trusts  his  own  eye :  only  they  who  are  de 
ceived  by  the  popular  repetition  of  distinguished 
names.  But  when  Napoleon  unrolls  his  map, 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        207 

the  eye  is  commanded  by  original  power.  When 
Chatham  leads  the  debate,  men  may  well  listen, 
because  they  must  listen.  A  man,  a  personal  as 
cendency,  is  the  only  great  phenomenon.  When 
Nature  has  work  to  be  done,  she  creates  a  gen 
ius  to  do  it.  Follow  the  great  man,  and  you 
shall  see  what  the  world  has  at  heart  in  these 
ages.  There  is  no  omen  like  that. 

But  what  strikes  us  in  the  fine  genius  is  that 
which  belongs  of  right  to  every  one.  A  man 
should  know  himself  for  a  necessary  actor.  A 
link  was  wanting  between  two  craving  parts  of 
nature,  and  he  was  hurled  into  being  as  the 
bridge  over  that  yawning  need,  the  mediator 
betwixt  two  else  unmarriageable  facts.  His  two 
parents  held  each  of  them  one  of  the  wants,  and 
the  union  of  foreign  constitutions  in  him  enables 
him  to  do  gladly  and  gracefully  what  the  assem 
bled  human  race  could  not  have  sufficed  to  do. 
He  knows  his  materials  ;  he  applies  himself  to 
his  work  ;  he  cannot  read,  or  think,  or  look, 
but  he  unites  the  hitherto  separated  strands 
into  a  perfect  cord.  The  thoughts  he  delights 
to  utter  are  the  reason  of  his  incarnation.  Is  it 
for  him  to  account  himself  cheap  and  super 
fluous,  or  to  linger  by  the  wayside  for  oppor 
tunities  ?  Did  he  not  come  into  being  because 


208        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

something  must  be  done  which  he  and  no  other 
is  and  does  ?  If  only  he  sees,  the  world  will  be 
visible  enough.  He  need  not  study  where  to 
stand,  nor  to  put  things  in  favorable  lights  ; 
in  him  is  the  light,  from  him  all  things  are  illu 
minated  to  their  centre.  What  patron  shall  he 
ask  for  employment  and  reward  ?  Hereto  was 
he  born,  to  deliver  the  thought  of  his  heart 
from  the  universe  to  the  universe;  to  do  an 
office  which  nature  could  not  forego,  nor  he  be 
discharged  from  rendering,  and  then  immerge 
again  into  the  holy  silence  and  eternity  out  of 
which  as  a  man  he  arose.  God  is  rich,  and  many 
more  men  than  one  he  harbors  in  his  bosom, 
biding  their  time  and  the  needs  and  the  beauty 
of  all.  Is  not  this  the  theory  of  every  man's 
genius  or  faculty  ?  Why  then  goest  thou  as 
some  Boswell  or  listening  worshipper  to  this 
saint  or  to  that  ?  That  is  the  only  lese-majesty. 
Here  art  thou  with  whom  so  long  the  universe 
travailed  in  labor  ;  darest  thou  think  meanly 
of  thyself  whom  the  stalwart  Fate  brought  forth 
to  unite  his  ragged  sides,  to  shoot  the  gulf,  to 
reconcile  the  irreconcilable  ? 

Whilst  a  necessity  so  great  caused  the  man 
to  exist,  his  health  and  erectness  consist  in  the 
fidelity  with  which  he  transmits  influences  from 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        209 

the  vast  and  universal  to  the  point  on  which  his 
genius  can  act.  The  ends  are-mpmentary  ;  they 
are  vents  for  the  current  of  inward  life  which 
increases  as  it  is  spent.  A  man's  wisdom  is  to 
know  that  all  ends  are  momentary,  that  the  best 
end  must  be  superseded  by  a  better.  But  there 
is  a  mischievous  tendency  in  him  to  transfer  his 
thought  from  the  life  to  the  ends,  to  quit  his 
agency  and  rest  in  his  acts :  the  tools  run  away 
with  the  workman,  the  human  with  the  divine. 
I  conceive  a  man  as  always  spoken  to  from  be 
hind,  and  unable  to  turn  his  head  and  see  the 
speaker.  In  all  the  millions  who  have  heard 
the  voice,  none  ever  saw  the  face.  As  children 
in  their  play  run  behind  each  other,  and  seize 
one  by  the  ears  and  make  him  walk  before  them, 
so  is  the  spirit  our  unseen  pilot.  That  well- 
known  voice  speaks  in  all  languages,  governs 
all  men,  and  none  ever  caught  a  glimpse  of  its 
form.  If  the  man  will  exactly  obey  it,  it  will 
adopt  him,  so  that  he  shall  not  any  longer  sepa 
rate  it  from  himself  in  his  thought ;  he  shall 
seem  to  be  it,  he  shall  be  it.  If  he  listen  with 
insatiable  ears,  richer  and  greater  wisdom  is 
taught  him ;  the  sound  swells  to  a  ravishing 
music,  he  is  borne  away  as  with  a  flood,  he  be 
comes  careless  of  his  food  and  of  his  house,  he 


210        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

is  the  fool  of  ideas,  and  leads  a  heavenly  life. 
But  if  his  eye  is  -set  on  the  things  to  be  done, 
and  not  on  the  truth  that  is  still  taught,  and  for 
the  sake  of  which  the  things  are  to  be  done, 
then  the  voice  grows  faint,  and  at  last  is  but  a 
humming  in  his  ears.  His  health  and  greatness 
consist  in  his  being  the  channel  through  which 
heaven  flows  to  earth,  in  short,  in  the  fulness  in 
which  an  ecstatical  state  takes  place  in  him.  It 
is  pitiful  to  be  an  artist,  when  by  forbearing  to 
be  artists  we  might  be  vessels  filled  with  the 
divine  overflowings,  enriched  by  the  circulations 
of  omniscience  and  omnipresence.  Are  there 
not  moments  in  the  history  of  heaven  when  the 
human  race  was  not  counted  by  individuals,  but 
was  only  the  Influenced,  was  God  in  distribu 
tion,  God  rushing  into  multiform  benefit?  It 
is  sublime  to  receive,  sublime  to  love,  but  this 
lust  of  imparting  as  from  us,  this  desire  to  be 
loved,  the  wish  to  be  recognized  as  individuals, 
—  is  finite,  comes  of  a  lower  strain.1 

Shall  I  say  then  that  as  far  as  we  can  trace  the 
natural  history  of  the  soul,  its  health  consists  in 
the  fulness  of  its  reception?  —  call  it  piety,  call 
it  veneration,  —  in  the  fact  that  enthusiasm  is 
organized  therein.  What  is  best  in  any  work  of 
art  but  that  part  which  the  work  itself  seems  to 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        211 

require  and  do ;  that  which  the  man  cannot  do 
again  ;  that  which  flows  from  the  hour  and  the 
occasion,  like  the  eloquence  of  men  in  a  tu 
multuous  debate  ? l  It  was  always  the  theory  of 
literature  that  the  word  of  a  poet  was  authori 
tative  and  final.  He  was  supposed  to  be  the 
mouth  of  a  divine  wisdom.  We  rather  envied 
his  circumstance  than  his  talent.  We  too  could 
have  gladly  prophesied  standing  in  that  place. 
We  so  quote  our  Scriptures  ;  and  the  Greeks  so 
quoted  Homer,  Theognis,  Pindar,  and  the  rest. 
If  the  theory  has  receded  out  of  modern  criti 
cism,  it  is  because  we  have  not  had  poets. 
Whenever  they  appear,  they  will  redeem  their 
own  credit.2 

This  ecstatical  state  seems  to  direct  a  regard 
to  the  whole  and  not  to  the  parts  ;  to  the  cause 
and  not  to  the  ends ;  to  the  tendency  and  not 
to  the  act.  It  respects  genius  and  not  talent ; 
hope,  and  not  possession  ;  the  anticipation  of  all 
things  by  the  intellect,  and  not  the  history  it 
self;  art,  and  not  works  of  art;  poetry,  and  not 
experiment;  virtue,  and  not  duties. 

There  is  no  office  or  function  of  man  but  is 
rightly  discharged  by  this  divine  method,  and 
nothing  that  is  not  noxious  to  him  if  detached 
from  its  universal  relations.  Is  it  his  work  in 


212        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

the  world  to  study  nature,  or  the  laws  of  the 
world  ?  Let  him  beware  of  proposing  to  him 
self  any  end.  Is  it  for  use  ?  nature  is  debased, 
as  if  one  looking  at  the  ocean  can  remember 
only  the  price  of  fish.  Or  is  it  for  pleasure  ?  he 
is  mocked ;  there  is  a  certain  infatuating  air  in 
woods  and  mountains  which  draws  on  the  idler 
to  want  and  misery.  There  is  something  social 
and  intrusive  in  the  nature  of  all  things ;  they 
seek  to  penetrate  and  overpower  each  the  na 
ture  of  every  other  creature,  and  itself  alone  in 
all  modes  and  throughout  space  and  spirit  to 
prevail  and  possess.  Every  star  in  heaven  is 
discontented  and  insatiable.  Gravitation  and 
chemistry  cannot  content  them.  Ever  they  woo 
and  court  the  eye  of  every  beholder.  Every 
man  who  comes  into  the  world  they  seek  to 
fascinate  and  possess,  to  pass  into  his  mind,  for 
they  desire  to  republish  themselves  in  a  more 
delicate  world  than  that  they  occupy.  It  is  not 
enough  that  they  are  Jove,  Mars,  Orion,  and 
the  North  Star,  in  the  gravitating  firmament ; 
they  would  have  such  poets  as  Newton,  Her- 
schel  and  Laplace,  that  they  may  re-exist  and 
re-appear  in  the  finer  world  of  rational  souls, 
and  fill  that  realm  with  their  fame.  So  is  it  with 
all  immaterial  objects.  These  beautiful  basi- 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE   213 

lisks  set  their  brute  glorious  eyes  on  the  eye  of 
every  child,  and,  if  they  can,  cause  their  nature 
to  pass  through  his  wondering  eyes  into  him, 
and  so  all  things  are  mixed.1 

Therefore  man  must  be  on  his  guard  against 
this  cup  of  enchantments,  and  must  look  at  na 
ture  with  a  supernatural  eye.  By  piety  alone, 
by  conversing  with  the  cause  of  nature,  is  he 
safe  and  commands  it.  And  because  all  know 
ledge  is  assimilation  to  the  object  of  knowledge, 
as  the  power  or  genius  of  nature  is  ecstatic,  so 
must  its  science  or  the  description  of  it  be.  The 
poet  must  be  a  rhapsodist ;  his  inspiration  a  sort 
of  bright  casualty ;  his  will  in  it  only  the  sur 
render  of  will  to  the  Universal  Power,  which 
will  not  be  seen  face  to  face,  but  must  be  re 
ceived  and  sympathetically  known.2  It  is  re 
markable  that  we  have,  out  of  the  deeps  of 
antiquity  in  the  oracles  ascribed  to  the  half  fab 
ulous  Zoroaster,  a  statement  of  this  fact  which 
every  lover  and  seeker  of  truth  will  recognize. 
"It  is  not  proper,"  said  Zoroaster,  "to  under 
stand  the  Intelligible  with  vehemence,  but  if 
you  incline  your  mind,  you  will  apprehend 
it :  not  too  earnestly,  but  bringing  a  pure  and 
inquiring  eye.  You  will  not  understand  it  as 
when  understanding  some  particular  thing,  but 


214        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

with  the  flower  of  the  mind.  Things  divine  are 
not  attainable  by  mortals  who  understand  sen 
sual  things,  but  only  the  light-armed  arrive  at 
the  summit."  ' 

And  because  ecstasy  is  the  law  and  cause  of 
nature,  therefore  you  cannot  interpret  it  in  too 
high  and  deep  a  sense.  Nature  represents  the 
best  meaning  of  the  wisest  man.  Does  the  sun 
set  landscape  seem  to  you  the  place  of  Friend 
ship,  —  those  purple  skies  and  lovely  waters  the 
amphitheatre  dressed  and  garnished  only  for  the 
exchange  of  thought  and  love  of  the  purest 
souls  ?  It  is  that.  All  other  meanings  which 
base  men  have  put  on  it  are  conjectural  and 
false.  You  cannot  bathe  twice  in  the  same  river, 
said  Heraclitus ;  and  I  add,  a  man  never  sees 
the  same  object  twice :  with  his  own  enlarge 
ment  the  object  acquires  new  aspects. 

Does  not  the  same  law  hold  for  virtue  ?  It  is 
vitiated  by  too  much  will.  He  who  aims  at 
progress  should  aim  at  an  infinite,  not  at  a  spe 
cial  benefit.  The  reforms  whose  fame  now  fills 
the  land  with  Temperance,  Anti-Slavery,  Non- 
Resistance,  No  Government,  Equal  Labor,  fair 
and  generous  as  each  appears,  are  poor  bitter 
things  when  prosecuted  for  themselves  as  an 
end.  To  every  reform,  in  proportion  to  its 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        215 

energy,  early  disgusts  are  incident,  so  that  the 
disciple  is  surprised  at  the  very  hour  of  his  first 
triumphs  with  chagrins,  and  sickness,  and  a  gen 
eral  distrust ;  so  that  he  shuns  his  associates, 
hates  the  enterprise  which  lately  seemed  so  fair, 
and  meditates  to  cast  himself  into  the  arms  of 
that  society  and  manner  of  life  which  he  had 
newly  abandoned  with  so  much  pride  and  hope. 
Is  it  that  he  attached  the  value  of  virtue  to  some 
particular  practices,  as  the  denial  of  certain  ap 
petites  in  certain  specified  indulgences,  and  after 
ward  found  himself  still  as  wicked  and  as  far 
from  happiness  in  that  abstinence  as  he  had 
been  in  the  abuse  ?  But  the  soul  can  be  ap 
peased  not  by  a  deed  but  by  a  ifcendency.  It  is 
in  a  hope  that  she  feels  her  wings.  You  shall 
love  rectitude,  and  not  the  disuse  of  money  or 
the  avoidance  of  trade ;  an  unimpeded  mind, 
and  not  a  monkish  diet ;  sympathy  and  useful 
ness,  and  not  hoeing  or  coopering.  Tell  me 
not  how  great  your  project  is,  the  civil  libera 
tion  of  the  world,  its  conversion  into  a  Christian 
church,  the  establishment  of  public  education, 
cleaner  diet,  a  new  division  of  labor  and  of  land, 
laws  of  love  for  laws  of  property  ;  —  I  say  to 
you  plainly  there  is  no  end  to  which  your  prac 
tical  faculty  can  aim,  so  sacred  or  so  large,  that, 


216        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

if  pursued  for  itself,  will  not  at  last  become  car 
rion  and  an  offence  to  the  nostril.  The  imagi 
native  faculty  of  the  soul  must  be  fed  with  ob 
jects  immense  and  eternal.  Your  end  should 
be  one  inapprehensible  to  the  senses  ;  then  will 
it  be  a  god  always  approached,  never  touched ; 
always  giving  health.  A  man  adorns  himself 
with  prayer  and  love,  as  an  aim  adorns  an  ac 
tion.  What  is  strong  but  goodness,  and  what  is 
energetic  but  the  presence  of  a  brave  man  ?  The 
doctrine  in  vegetable  physiology  of  the  presence, 
or  the  general  influence  of  any  substance  over 
and  above  its  chemical  influence,  as  of  an  alkali 
or  a  living  plant,  is  more  predicable  of  man. 
You  need  not^peak  to  me,  I  need  not  go  where 
you  are,  that  you  should  exert  magnetism  on 
me.  Be  you  only  whole  and  sufficient,  and  I 
shall  feel  you  in  every  part  of  my  life  and  for 
tune,  and  I  can  as  easily  dodge  the  gravitation 
of  the  globe  as  escape  your  influence. 

But  there  are  other  examples  of  this  total  and 
supreme  influence,  besides  Nature  and  the  con 
science.  "From  the  poisonous  tree,  the  world," 
say  the  Brahmins,  "two  species  of  fruit  are  pro 
duced,  sweet  as  the  waters  of  life ;  Love  or  the 
society  of  beautiful  souls,  and  Poetry,  whose 
taste  is  like  the  immortal  juice  of  Vishnu." 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        217 

What  is  Love,  and  why  is  it  the  chief  good, 
but  because  it  is  an  overpowering  enthusiasm  ? 
Never  self-possessed  or  prudent,  it  is  all  aban 
donment.  Is  it  not  a  certain  admirable  wisdom, 
preferable  to  all  other  advantages,  and  whereof 
all  others  are  only  secondaries  and  indemnities, 
because  this  is  that  in  which  the  individual  is 
no  longer  his  own  foolish  master,  but  inhales  an 
odorous  and  celestial  air,  is  wrapped  round  with 
awe  of  the  object,  blending  for  the  time  that  ob 
ject  with  the  real  and  only  good,  and  consults 
every  omen  in  nature  with  tremulous  interest? 
When  we  speak  truly, — is  not  he  only  unhappy 
who  is  not  in  love  ?  his  fancied  freedom  and  self- 
rule —  is  it  not  so  much  death?  He  who  is  in 
love  is  wise  and  is  becoming  wiser,  sees  newly 
every  time  he  looks  at  the  object  beloved,  draw 
ing  from  it  with  his  eyes  and  his  mind  those  vir 
tues  which  it  possesses.  Therefore  if  the  object 
be  not  itself  a  living  and  expanding  soul,  he 
presently  exhausts  it.  But  the  love  remains  in 
his  mind,  and  the  wisdom  it  brought  him ;  and 
it  craves  a  new  and  higher  object.  And  the 
reason  why  all  men  honor  love  is  because  it 
looks  up  and  not  down  ;  aspires  and  not  de 
spairs. 

And  what  is  Genius  but  finer  love,  a  love  im- 


2i8        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

personal,  a  love  of  the  flower  and  perfection  of 
things,  and  a  desire  to  draw  a  new  picture  or 
copy  of  the  same?  It  looks  to  the  cause  and 
life :  it  proceeds  from  within  outward,  whilst 
Talent  goes  from  without  inward.  Talent  finds 
its  models,  methods,  and  ends,  in  society,  exists 
for  exhibition,  and  goes  to  the  soul  only  for 
power  to  work.  Genius  is  its  own  end,  and 
draws  its  means  and  the  style  of  its  architecture 
from  within,  going  abroad  only  for  audience  and 
spectator,  as  we  adapt  our  voice  and  phrase  to 
the  distance  and  character  of  the  ear  we  speak 
to.  All  your  learning  of  all  literatures  would 
never  enable  you  to  anticipate  one  of  its  thoughts 
or  expressions,  and  yet  each  is  natural  and  fa 
miliar  as  household  words.  Here  about  us  coils 
forever  the  ancient  enigma,  so  old  and  so  unut 
terable.  Behold  !  there  is  the  sun,  and  the  rain, 
and  the  rocks  ;  the  old  sun,  the  old  stones. 
How  easy  were  it  to  describe  all  this  fitly ;  yet 
no  word  can  pass.  Nature  is  a  mute,  and  man, 
her  articulate,  speaking  brother,  lo  !  he  also  is 
a  mute.  Yet  when  Genius  arrives,  its  speech 
is  like  a  river ;  it  has  no  straining  to  describe, 
more  than  there  is  straining  in  nature  to  exist. 
When  thought  is  best,  there  is  most  of  it.  Gen 
ius  sheds  wisdom  like  perfume,  and  advertises 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        219 

us  that  it  flows  out  of  a  deeper  source  than  the 
foregoing  silence,  that  it  knows  so  deeply  and 
speaks  so  musically,  because  it  is  itself  a  muta 
tion  of  the  thing  it  describes.  It  is  sun  and 
moon  and  wave  and  fire  in  music,  as  astronomy 
is  thought  and  harmony  in  masses  of  matter. 

What  is  all  history  but  the  work  of  ideas,  a 
record  of  the  incomputable  energy  which  his  in 
finite  aspirations  infuse  into  man  ?  Has  any 
thing  grand  and  lasting  been  done  ?  Who  did 
it  ?  Plainly  not  any  man,  but  all  men :  it  was 
the  prevalence  and  inundation  of  an  idea.  What 
brought  the  pilgrims  here  ?  One  man  says,  civil 
liberty;  another,  the  desire  of  founding  a  church; 
and  a  third  discovers  that  the  motive  force  was 
plantation  and  trade.  But  if  the  Puritans  could 
rise  from  the  dust  they  could  not  answer.  It  is 
to  be  seen  in  what  they  were,  and  not  in  what 
they  designed ;  it  was  the  growth  and  expansion 
of  the  human  race,  and  resembled  herein  the 
sequent  Revolution,  which  was  not  begun  in 
Concord,  or  Lexington,  or  Virginia,  but  was  the 
overflowing  of  the  sense  of  natural  right  in  every 
clear  and  active  spirit  of  the  period.  Is  a  man 
boastful  and  knowing,  and  his  own  master  ?  — 
we  turn  from  him  without  hope :  but  let  him 
be  filled  with  awe  and  dread  before  the  Vast  and 


220        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

the  Divine,  which  uses  him  glad  to  be  used,  and 
our  eye  is  riveted  to  the  chain  of  events.  What 
a  debt  is  ours  to  that  old  religion  which,  in  the 
childhood  of  most  of  us,  still  dwelt  like  a  sab 
bath  morning  in  the  country  of  New  England, 
teaching  privation,  self-denial  and  sorrow !  A 
man  was  born  not  for  prosperity,  but  to  suffer 
for  the  benefit  of  others,  like  the  noble  rock- 
maple  which  all  around  our  villages  bleeds  for 
the  service  of  man.  Not  praise,  not  men's  ac 
ceptance  of  our  doing,  but  the  spirit's  holy 
errand  through  us  absorbed  the  thought.  How 
dignified  was  this  !  How  all  that  is  called  talents 
and  success,  in  our  noisy  capitals,  becomes  buzz 
and  din  before  this  man-worthiness  I1  How  our 
friendships  and  the  complaisances  we  use,  shame 
us  now !  Shall  we  not  quit  our  companions,  as 
if  they  were  thieves  and  pot-companions,  and 
betake  ourselves  to  some  desert  cliff  of  Mount 
Katahdin,  some  unvisited  recess  in  Moosehead 
Lake,  to  bewail  our  innocency  and  to  recover  it, 
and  with  it  the  power  to  communicate  again  with 
these  sharers  of  a  more  sacred  idea  ? 

And  what  is  to  replace  for  us  the  piety  of 
that  race  ?  We  cannot  have  theirs ;  it  glides 
away  from  us  day  by  day  ;  but  we  also  can  bask 
in  the  great  morning  which  rises  forever  out  of 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE   221 

the  eastern  sea,  and  be  ourselves  the  children 
of  the  light.  I  stand  here  to  say,  Let  us  wor 
ship  the  mighty  and  transcendent  Soul.  It  is 
the  office,  I  doubt  not,  of  this  age  to  annul  that 
adulterous  divorce  which  the  superstition  of 
many  ages  has  effected  between  the  intellect  and 
holiness.  The  lovers  of  goodness  have  been 
one  class,  the  students  of  wisdom  another  ;  as  if 
either  could  exist  in  any  purity  without  the  other. 
Truth  is  always  holy,  holiness  always  wise.  I 
will  that  we  keep  terms  with  sin  and  a  sinful 
literature  and  society  no  longer,  but  live  a  life 
of  discovery  and  performance.  Accept  the  in 
tellect,  and  it  will  accept  us.  Be  the  lowly  min 
isters  of  that  pure  omniscience,  and  deny  it  not 
before  men.  It  will  burn  up  all  profane  litera 
ture,  all  base  current  opinions,  all  the  false  powers 
of  the  world,  as  in  a  moment  of  time.  I  draw 
from  nature  the  lesson  of  an  intimate  divinity. 
Our  health  and  reason  as  men  need  our  respect 
to  this  fact,  against  the  heedlessness  and  against 
the  contradiction  of  society.  The  sanity  of  man 
needs  the  poise  of  this  immanent  force.  His  no 
bility  needs  the  assurance  of  this  inexhaustible 
reserved  power.  How  great  soever  have  been 
its  bounties,  they  are  a  drop  to  the  sea  whence 
they  flow.  If  you  say,  c  The  acceptance  of  the 


222        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

vision  is  also  the  act  of  God  : '  —  I  shall  not 
seek  to  penetrate  the  mystery,  I  admit  the  force 
of  what  you  say.  If  you  ask,  £  How  can  any 
rules  be  given  for  the  attainment  of  gifts  so 
sublime  ?  *  I  shall  only  remark  that  the  solicita 
tions  of  this  spirit,  as  long  as  there  is  life,  are 
never  forborne.  Tenderly,  tenderly,  they  woo 
and  court  us  from  every  object  in  nature,  from 
every  fact  in  life,  from  every  thought  in  the 
mind.  The  one  condition  coupled  with  the  gift 
of  truth  is  its  use.  That  man  shall  be  learned 
who  reduceth  his  learning  to  practice.  Emanuel 
Swedenborg  affirmed  that  it  was  opened  to  him 
"that  the  spirits  who  knew  truth  in  this  life,  but 
did  it  not,  at  death  shall  lose  their  knowledge." 
"If  knowledge,"  said  Ali  the  Caliph,1  "  calleth 
unto  practice,  well ;  if  not,  it  goeth  away."  The 
only  way  into  nature  is  to  enact  our  best  insight. 
Instantly  we  are  higher  poets,  and  can  speak  a 
deeper  law.  Do  what  you  know,  and  perception 
is  converted  into  character,  as  islands  and  con 
tinents  were  built  by  invisible  infusories,  or  as 
these  forest  leaves  absorb  light,  electricity,  and 
volatile  gases,  and  the  gnarled  oak  to  live  a 
thousand  years  is  the  arrest  and  fixation  of  the 
most  volatile  and  ethereal  currents.  The  doc 
trine  of  this  Supreme  Presence  is  a  cry  of  joy 


THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE        223 

and  exultation.  Who  shall  dare  think  he  has 
come  late  into  nature,  or  has  missed  anything 
excellent  in  the  past,  who  seeth  the  admirable 
stars  of  possibility,  and  the  yet  untouched  con 
tinent  of  hope  glittering  with  all  its  mountains 
in  the  vast  West  ?  I  praise  with  wonder  this 
great  reality,  which  seems  to  drown  all  things  in 
the  deluge  of  its  light.  What  man  seeing  this, 
can  lose  it  from  his  thoughts,  or  entertain  a 
meaner  subject  ?  The  entrance  of  this  into  his 
mind  seems  to  be  the  birth  of  man.  We  can 
not  describe  the  natural  history  of  the  soul,  but 
we  know  that  it  is  divine.  I  cannot  tell  if  these 
wonderful  qualities  which  house  to-day  in  this 
mortal  frame  shall  ever  re-assemble  in  equal 
activity  in  a  similar  frame,  or  whether  they  have 
before  had  a  natural  history  like  that  of  this 
body  you  see  before  you  ;  but  this  one  thing  I 
know,  that  these  qualities  did  not  now  begin  to 
exist,  cannot  be  sick  with  my  sickness,  nor  buried 
in  any  grave ;  but  that  they  circulate  through 
the  Universe  :  before  the  world  was,  they  were. 
Nothing  can  bar  them  out,  or  shut  them  in,  but 
they  penetrate  the  ocean  and  land,  space  and 
time,  form  an  essence,  and  hold  the  key  to  uni 
versal  nature.  I  draw  from  this  faith  courage 
and  hope.  All  things  are  known  to  the  soul.  It 


224        THE  METHOD  OF  NATURE 

is  not  to  be  surprised  by  any  communication. 
Nothing  can  be  greater  than  it.  Let  those  fear 
and  those  fawn  who  will.  The  soul  is  in  her 
native  realm,  and  it  is  wider  than  space,  older 
than  time,  wide  as  hope,  rich  as  love.  Pusillanim 
ity  and  fear  she  refuses  with  a  beautiful  scorn  ; 
they  are  not  for  her  who  puts  on  her  coronation 
robes,  and  goes  out  through  universal  love  to 
universal  power. 


MAN   THE    REFORMER 

A   LECTURE   READ    BEFORE  THE  MECHANICS'   APPREN 
TICES'  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION,  BOSTON, 
JANUARY  25,   1841. 


MAN   THE   REFORMER 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  WISH  to  offer  to  your  consideration  some 
thoughts  on  the  particular  and  general  rela 
tions  of  man  as  a  reformer.  I  shall  assume  that 
the  aim  of  each  young  man  in  this  association  is 
the  very  highest  that  belongs  to  a  rational  mind. 
Let  it  be  granted  that  our  life,  as  we  lead  it,  is 
common  and  mean ;  that  some  of  those  offices 
and  functions  for  which  we  were  mainly  created 
are  grown  so  rare  in  society  that  the  memory 
of  them  is  only  kept  alive  in  old  books  and  in 
dim  traditions ;  that  prophets  and  poets,  that 
beautiful  and  perfect  men  we  are  not  now,  no, 
nor  have  even  seen  such  ;  that  some  sources  of 
human  instruction  are  almost  unnamed  and  un 
known  among  us ;  that  the  community  in  which 
we  live  will  hardly  bear  to  be  told  that  every 
man  should  be  open  to  ecstacy  or  a -divine  illu 
mination,  and  his  daily  walk  elevated  by  inter 
course  with  the  spiritual  world.1  Grant  all  this, 
as  we  must,  yet  I  suppose  none  of  my  auditors 
will  deny  that  we  ought  to  seek  to  establish 
ourselves  in  such  disciplines  and  courses  as  will 
deserve  that  guidance  and  clearer  communication 


228  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

with  the  spiritual  nature.  And  further,  I  will 
not  dissemble  my  hope  that  each  person  whom 
I  address  has  felt  his  own  call  to  cast  aside  all  evil 
customs,  timidities,  and  limitations,  and  to  be 
in  his  place  a  free  and  helpful  man,  a  reformer, 
a  benefactor,  not  content  to  slip  along  through 
the  world  like  a  footman  or  a  spy,  escaping  by 
his  nimbleness  and  apologies  as  many  knocks 
as  he  can,  but  a  brave  and  upright  man,  who 
must  find  or  cut  a  straight  road  to  everything 
excellent  in  the  earth,  and  not  only  go  honorably 
himself,  but  make  it  easier  for  all  who  follow 
him  to  go  in  honor  and  with  benefit. 

In  the  history  of  the  world  the  doctrine  of  Re 
form  had  never  such  scope  as  at  the  present  hour. 
Lutherans,  Herrnhutters,  Jesuits,  Monks,  Qua 
kers,  Knox,  Wesley,  Swedenborg,  Bentham,  in 
their  accusations  of  society,  all  respected  some 
thing,  —  church  or  state,  literature  or  history, 
domestic  usages,  the  market  town,  the  dinner 
table,  coined  money.  But  now  all  these  and  all 
things  else  hear  the  trumpet,  and  must  rush  to 
judgment,  —  Christianity,  the  laws,  commerce, 
schools,  the  farm,  the  laboratory ;  and  not  a 
kingdom,  town,  statute,  rite,  calling,  man,  or 
woman,  but  is  threatened  by  the  new  spirit. 

What  if  some  of  the  objections  whereby  our 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  229 

institutions  are  assailed  are  extreme  and  specu 
lative,  and  the  reformers  tend  to  idealism  ?  That 
only  shows  the  extravagance  of  the  abuses  which 
have  driven  the  mind  into  the  opposite  extreme. 
It  is  when  your  facts  and  persons  grow  unreal 
and  fantastic  by  too  much  falsehood,  that  the 
scholar  flies  for  refuge  to  the  world  of  ideas,  and 
aims  to  recruit  and  replenish  nature  from  that 
source.1  Let  ideas  establish  their  legitimate 
sway  again  in  society,  let  life  be  fair  and  poetic, 
and  the  scholars  will  gladly  be  lovers,  citizens, 
and  philanthropists. 

It  will  afford  no  security  from  the  new  ideas, 
that  the  old  nations,  the  laws  of  centuries,  the 
property  and  institutions  of  a  hundred  cities, 
are  built  on  other  foundations.  The  demon  of 
reform  has  a  secret  door  into  the  heart  of  every 
lawmaker,  of  every  inhabitant  of  every  city. 
The  fact  that  a  new  thought  and  hope  have 
dawned  in  your  breast,  should  apprize  you  that 
in  the  same  hour  a  new  light  broke  in  upon  a 
thousand  private  hearts.  That  secret  which  you 
would  fain  keep,  —  as  soon  as  you  go  abroad, 
lo  !  there  is  one  standing  on  the  doorstep  to 
tell  you  the  same.  There  is  not  the  most 
bronzed  and  sharpened  money-catcher  who  does 
not,  to  your  consternation  almost,  quail  and 


23o  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

shake  the  moment  he  hears  a  question  prompted 
by  the  new  ideas.  We  thought  he  had  some 
semblance  of  ground  to  stand  upon,  that  such 
as  he  at  least  would  die  hard ;  but  he  trembles 
and  flees.  Then  the  scholar  says,  c  Cities  and 
coaches  -shall  never  impose  on  me  again  ;  for 
behold  every  solitary  dream  of  mine  is  rushing 
to  fulfilment.  That  fancy  I  had,  and  hesitated  to 
utter  because  you  would  laugh, — the  broker,  the 
attorney,  the  market-man  are  saying  the  same 
thing.  Had  I  waited  a  day  longer  to  speak,  I 
had  been  too  late.  Behold,  State  Street  thinks, 
and  Wall  Street  doubts,  and  begins  to  prophesy ! z 
It  cannot  be  wondered  at  that  this  general 
inquest  into  abuses  should  arise  in  the  bosom 
of  society,  when  one  considers  the  practical  im 
pediments  that  stand  in  the  way  of  virtuous 
young  men.  The  young  man,  on  entering  life, 
finds  the  way  to  lucrative  employments  blocked 
with  abuses.  The  ways  of  trade  are  grown 
selfish  to  the  borders  of  theft,  and  supple  to 
,the  borders  (if  not  beyond  the  borders)  of  fraud. 
The  employments  of  commerce  are  not  intrin 
sically  unfit  for  a  man,  or  less  genial  to  his 
faculties ;  but  these  are  now  in  their  general 
course  so  vitiated  by  derelictions  and  abuses  at 
which  all  connive,  that  it  requires  more  vigor 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  231 

and  resources  than  can  be  expected  of  every 
young  man,  to  right  himself  in  them  ;  he  is 
lost  in  them  ;  he  cannot  move  hand  or  foot  in 
them.  Has  he  genius  and  virtue?  the  less  does 
he  find  them  fit  for  him  to  grow  in,  and  if 
he  would  thrive  in  them,  he  must  sacrifice  all 
the  brilliant  dreams  of  boyhood  and  youth  as 
dreams  ;  he  must  forget  the  prayers  of  his  child 
hood  and  must  take  on  him  the  harness  of 
routine  and  obsequiousness.  If  not  so  minded, 
nothing  is  left  him  but  to  begin  the  world  anew, 
as  he  does  who  puts  the  spade  into  the  ground 
for  food.  We  are  all  implicated  of  course  in 
this  charge ;  it  is  only  necessary  to  ask  a  few 
questions  as  to  the  progress  of  the  articles  of 
commerce  from  the  fields  where  they  grew,  to 
our  houses,  to  become  aware  that  we  eat  and 
drink  and  wear  perjury  and  fraud  in  a  hundred 
commodities.  How  many  articles  of  daily  con 
sumption  are  furnished  us  from  the  West  In 
dies  ;  yet  it  is  said  that  in  the  Spanish  islands 
the  venality  of  the  officers  of  the  government 
has  passed  into  usage,  and  that  no  article  passes 
into  our  ships  which  has  not  been  fraudulently 
cheapened.  In  the  Spanish  islands,  every  agent 
or  factor  of  the  Americans,  unless  he  be  a  con 
sul,  has  taken  oath  that  he  is  a  Catholic,  or  has 


232  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

caused  a  priest  to  make  that  declaration  for  him. 
The  abolitionist  has  shown  us  our  dreadful  debt 
to  the  southern  negro.  In  the  island  of  Cuba, 
in  addition  to  the  ordinary  abominations  of 
slavery,  it  appears  only  men  are  bought  for  the 
plantations,  and  one  dies  in  ten  every  year,  of 
these  miserable  bachelors,  to  yield  us  sugar.  I 
leave  for  those  who  have  the  knowledge  the 
part  of  sifting  the  oaths  of  our  custom-houses ; 
I  will  not  inquire  into  the  oppression  of  the 
sailors ;  I  will  not  pry  into  the  usages  of  our 
retail  trade.  I  content  myself  with  the  fact  that 
the  general  system  of  our  trade  (apart  from  the 
blacker  traits,  which,  I  hope,  are  exceptions  de 
nounced  and  unshared  by  all  reputable  men)  is 
a  system  of  selfishness ;  is  not  dictated  by  the 
high  sentiments  of  human  nature;  is  not  mea 
sured  by  the  exact  law  of  reciprocity,  much  less 
by  the  sentiments  of  love  and  heroism,  but  is  a 
system  of  distrust,  of  concealment,  of  superior 
keenness,  not  of  giving  but  of  taking  advantage. 
It  is  not  that  which  a  man  delights  to  unlock 
to  a  noble  friend ;  which  he  meditates  on  with 
joy  and  self-approval  in  his  hour  of  love  and 
aspiration  ;  but  rather  what,  he  then  puts  out 
of  sight,  only  showing  the  brilliant  result,  and 
atoning  for  the  manner  of  acquiring,  by  the 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  233 

manner  of  expending  it.  I  do  not  charge  the 
merchant  or  the  manufacturer.  The  sins  of  our 
trade  belong  to  no  class,  to  no  individual.  One 
plucks,  one  distributes,  one  eats.  Every  body 
partakes,  every  body  confesses,  —  with  cap  and 
knee  volunteers  his  confession,  yet  none  feels 
himself  accountable.  He  did  not  create  the 
abuse  ;  he  cannot  alter  it.  What  is  he  ?  an  ob 
scure  private  person  who  must  get  his  bread. 
That  is  the  vice,  —  that  no  one  feels  himself 
called  to  act  for  man,  but  only  as  a  fraction  of 
man.  It  happens  therefore  that  all  such  in 
genuous  souls  as  feel  within  themselves  the  irre 
pressible  strivings  of  a  noble  aim,  who  by  the 
law  of  their  nature  must  act  simply,  find  these 
ways  of  trade  unfit  for  them,  and  they  come 
forth  from  it.  Such  cases  are  becoming  more 
numerous  every  year. 

But  by  coming  out  of  trade  you  have  not 
cleared  yourself.  The  trail  of  the  serpent 
reaches  into  all  the  lucrative  professions  and 
practices  of  man.  Each  has  its  own  wrongs. 
Each  finds  a  tender  and  very  intelligent  con 
science  a  disqualification  for  success.  Each  re 
quires  of  the  practitioner  a  certain  shutting  of 
the  eyes,  a  certain  dapperness  and  compliance, 
an  acceptance  of  customs,  a  sequestration  from 


234  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

the  sentiments  of  generosity  and  love,  a  com- 
-  promise  of  private  opinion  and  lofty  integrity. 
Nay,  the  evil  custom  reaches  into  the  whole 
institution  of  property,  until  our  laws  which 
establish  and  protect  it  seem  not  to  be  the  issue 
of  love  and  reason,  but  of  selfishness.  Suppose 
a  man  is  so  unhappy  as  to  be  born  a  saint,  with 
keen  perceptions  but  with  the  conscience  and 
love  of  an  angel,  and  he  is  to  get  his  living  in 
the  world ;  he  finds  himself  excluded  from  all 
lucrative  works  ;  he  has  no  farm,  and  he  cannot 
get  one ;  for  to  earn  money  enough  to  buy  one 
requires  a  sort  of  concentration  toward  money, 
which  is  the  selling  himself  for  a  number  of 
years,  and  to  him  the  present  hour  is  as  sacred 
and  inviolable  as  any  future  hour.  Of  course, 
whilst  another  man  has  no  land,  my  title  to 
mine,  your  title  to  yours,  is  at  once  vitiated. 
Inextricable  seem  to  be  the  twinings  and  ten 
drils  of  this  evil,  and  we  all  involve  ourselves 
in  it  the  deeper  by  forjning  connections,  by 
wives  and  children,  by  benefits  and  debts.1 

Considerations  of  this  kind  have  turned  the 
attention  of  many  philanthropic  and  intelligent 
persons  to  the  claims  of  manual  labor,  as  a  part 
of  the  education  of  every  young  man.  If  the 
accumulated  wealth  of  the  past  generation  is 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  235 

thus  tainted,  —  no  matter  how  much  of  it  is 
offered  to  us,  —  we  must  begin  to  consider  if  it 
were  not  the  nobler  part  to  renounce  it,  and  to 
put  ourselves  into  primary  relations  with  the 
soil  and  nature,  and  abstaining  from  whatever 
is  dishonest  and  unclean,  to  take  each  of  us 
bravely  his  part,  with  his  own  hands,  in  the 
manual  labor  of  the  world. 

But  it  is  said,  c  What !  will  you  give  up  the 
immense  advantages  reaped  from  the  division 
of  labor,  and  set  every  man  to  make  his  own 
shoes,  bureau,  knife,  wagon,  sails,  and  needle  ? 
This  would  be  to  put  men  back  into  barba 
rism  by  their  own  act.'  I  see  no  instant  prospect 
of  a  virtuous  revolution  ;  yet  I  confess  I  should 
not  be  pained  at  a  change  which  threatened  a 
loss  of  some  of  the  luxuries  or  conveniences  of 
society,  if  it  proceeded  from  a  preference  of  the 
agricultural  life  out  of  the  belief  that  our  primary 
duties  as  men  could  be  better  discharged  in  that 
calling.  Who  could  regret  to  see  a  high  con 
science  and  a  purer  taste  exercising  a  sensible 
effect  on  young  men  in  their  choice  of  occupa 
tion,  and  thinning  the  ranks  of  competition  in 
the  labors  of  commerce,  of  law,  and  of  state  ? 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  inconvenience  would 
last  but  a  short  time.  This  would  be  great 


236  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

action,  which  always  opens  the  eyes  of  men. 
When  many  persons  shall  have  done  this,  when 
the  majority  shall  admit  the  necessity  of  reform 
in  all  these  institutions,  their  abuses  will  be  re 
dressed,  and  the  way  will  be  open  again  to  the 
advantages  which  arise  from  the  division  of 
labor,  and  a  man  may  select  the  fittest  employ 
ment  for  his  peculiar  talent  again,  without  com 
promise.1 

But  quite  apart  from  the  emphasis  which  the 
times  give  to  the  doctrine  that  the  manual  labor 
of  society  ought  to  be  shared  among  all  the 
members,  there  are  reasons  proper  to  every  in 
dividual  why  he  should  not  be  deprived  of  it. 
The  use  of  manual  labor  is  one  which  never 
grows  obsolete,  and  which  is  inapplicable  to  no 
person.  A  man  should  have  a  farm  or  a  me 
chanical  craft  for  his  culture.  We  must  have  a 
basis  for  our  higher  accomplishments,  our  deli 
cate  entertainments  of  poetry  and  philosophy, 
in  the  work  of  our  hands.  We  must  have  an 
antagonism  in  the  tough  world  for  all  the  vari 
ety  of  our  spiritual  faculties,  or  they  will  not 
be  born.  Manual  labor  is  the  study  of  the  ex 
ternal  world.  The  advantage  of  riches  remains 
with  him  who  procured  them,  not  with  the 
heir.  When  I  go  into  my  garden  with  a  spade, 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  237 

and  dig  a  bed,  I  feel  such  an  exhilaration  and 
health  that  I  discover  that  I  have  been  defraud 
ing  myself  all  this  time  in  letting  others  do  for 
me  what  I  should  have  done  with  my  own 
hands.  But  not  only  health,  but  education  is  in 
the  work.1  Is  it  possible  that  I,  who  get  indefi 
nite  quantities  of  sugar,  hominy,  cotton,  buck 
ets,  crockery-ware,  and  letter-paper,  by  simply 
signing  my  name  once  in  three  months  to  a 
cheque  in  favor  of  John  Smith  &  Co.  traders, 
get  the  fair  share  of  exercise  to  my  faculties  by 
that  act  which  nature  intended  for  me  in  mak 
ing  all  these  far-fetched  matters  important  to 
my  comfort  ?  It  is  Smith  himself,  and  his  car 
riers,  and  dealers,  and  manufacturers ;  it  is  the 
sailor,  the  hide-drogher,  the  butcher,  the  negro, 
the  hunter,  and  the  planter,  who  have  inter 
cepted  the  sugar  of  the  sugar,  and  the  cotton 
of  the  cotton.  They  have  got  the  education,  I 
only  the  commodity.  This  were  all  very  well 
if  I  were  necessarily  absent,  being  detained  by 
work  of  my  own,  like  theirs,  work  of  the  same 
faculties  ;  then  should  I  be  sure  of  my  hands 
and  feet ;  but  now  I  feel  some  shame  before  my 
wood-chopper,  my  ploughman,  and  my  cook, 
for  they  have  some  sort  of  self-sufficiency,  they 
can  contrive  without  my  aid  to  bring  the  day 


238  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

and  year  round,  but  I  depend  on  them,  and 
have  not  earned  by  use  a  right  to  my  arms  and 
feet.1 

Consider  further  the  difference  between  the 
first  and  second  owner  of  property.  Every  spe 
cies  of  property  is  preyed  on  by  its  own  ene 
mies,  as  iron  by  rust ;  timber  by  rot ;  cloth 
by  moths  ;  provisions  by  mould,  putridity,  or 
vermin  ;  money  by  thieves  ;  an  orchard  by  in 
sects  ;  a  planted  field  by  weeds  and  the  inroad 
of  cattle ;  a  stock  of  cattle  by  hunger  ;  a  road 
by  rain  and  frost ;  a  bridge  by  freshets.  And 
whoever  takes  any  of  these  things  into  his  pos 
session,  takes  the  charge  of  defending  them  from 
this  troop  of  enemies,  or  of  keeping  them  in  re 
pair.  A  man  who  supplies  his  own  want,  who 
builds  a  raft  or  a  boat  to  go  a-fishing,  finds  it 
easy  to  caulk  it,  or  put  in  a  thole-pin,  or  mend 
the  rudder.  What  he  gets  only  as  fast  as  he 
wants  for  his  own  ends,  does  not  embarrass 
him,  or  take  away  his  sleep  with  looking  after. 
But  when  he  comes  to  give  all  the  goods  he  has 
year  after  year  collected,  in  one  estate  to  his  son, 
-house,  orchard,  ploughed  land,  cattle,  bridges, 
hardware,  wooden-ware,  carpets,  cloths,  provi 
sions,  books,  money,  —  and  cannot  give  him  the 
skill  and  experience  which  made  or  collected 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  239 

these,  and  the  method  and  place  they  have  in 
his  own  life,  the  son  finds  his  hands  full,  —  not 
to  use  these  things,  but  to  look  after  them  and 
defend  them  from  their  natural  enemies.  To 
him  they  are  not  means,  but  masters.  Their 
enemies  will  not  remit ;  rust,  mould,  vermin, 
rain,  sun,  freshet,  fire,  all  seize  their  own,  fill 
him  with  vexation,  and  he  is  converted  from 
the  owner  into  a  watchman  or  a  watch-dog  to 
this  magazine  of  old  and  new  chattels.  What 
a  change  !  Instead  of  the  masterly  good  humor 
and  sense  of  power  and  fertility  of  resource  in 
himself;  instead  of  those  strong  and  learned 
hands,  those  piercing  and  learned  eyes,  that 
supple  body,  and  that  mighty  and  prevailing 
heart  which  the  father  had,  whom  nature  loved 
and  feared,  whom  snow  and  rain,  water  and 
land,  beast  and  fish  seemed  all  to  know  and  to 
serve,  —  we  have  now  a  puny,  protected  person, 
guarded  by  walls  and  curtains,  stoves  and  down 
beds,  coaches,  and  men-servants  and  women- 
servants  from  the  earth  and  the  sky,  and  who, 
bred  to  depend  on  all  these,  is  made  anxious 
by  all  that  endangers  those  possessions,  and  is 
forced  to  spend  so  much  time  in  guarding  them, 
that  he  has  quite  lost  sight  of  their  original  use, 
namely,  to  help  him  to  his  ends,  —  to  the  pro- 


240  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

secution  of  his  love ;  to  the  helping  of  his  friend, 
to  the  worship  of  his  God,  to  the  enlargement 
of  his  knowledge,  to  the  serving  of  his  country, 
to  the  indulgence  of  his  sentiment ;  and  he  is 
now  what  is  called  a  rich  man,  —  the  menial 
and  runner  of  his  riches.1 

Hence  it  happens  that  the  whole  interest  of 
history  lies  in  the  fortunes  of  the  poor.  Know 
ledge,  Virtue,  Power  are  the  victories  of  man 
over  his  necessities,  his  march  to  the  dominion 
of  the  world.  Every  man  ought  to  have  this 
opportunity  to  conquer  the  world  for  himself. 
Only  such  persons  interest  us,  Spartans,  Ro 
mans,  Saracens,  English,  Americans,  who  have 
stood  in  the  jaws  of  need,  and  have  by  their 
own  wit  and  might  extricated  themselves,  and 
made  man  victorious. 

I  do  not  wish  to  overstate  this  doctrine  of 
labor,  or  insist  that  every  man  should  be  a 
farmer,  any  more  than  that  every  man  should 
be  a  lexicographer.  In  general  one  may  say  that 
the  husbandman's  is  the  oldest  and  most  uni 
versal  profession,  and  that  where  a  man  does 
not  yet  discover  in  himself  any  fitness  for  one 
work  more  than  another,  this  may  be  preferred. 
But  the  doctrine  of  the  Farm  is  merely  this, 
that  every  man  ought  to  stand  in  primary  rela- 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  241 

tions  with  the  work  of  the  world  ;  ought  to  do 
it  himself,  and  not  to  suffer  the  accident  of  his 
having  a  purse  in  his  pocket,  or  his  having  been 
bred  to  some  dishonorable  and  injurious  craft, 
to  sever  him  from  those  duties  ;  and  for  this 
reason,  that  labor  is  God's  education ;  that  he 
only  is  a  sincere  learner,  he  only  can  become  a 
master,  who  learns  the  secrets  of  labor,  and  who 
by  real  cunning  extorts  from  nature  its  sceptre. 
Neither  would  I  shut  my  ears  to  the  plea  of 
the  learned  professions,  of  the  poet,  the  priest, 
the  law -giver,  and  men  of  study  generally; 
namely,  that  in  the  experience  of  all  men  of 
that  class,  the  amount  of  manual  labor  which 
is  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  a  family,  in 
disposes  and  disqualifies  for  intellectual  exer 
tion.  I  know  it  often,  perhaps  usually,  happens 
that  where  there  is  a  fine  organization,  apt  for 
poetry  and  philosophy,  that  individual  finds 
himself  compelled  to  wait  on  his  thoughts  ;  to 
waste  several  days  that  he  may  enhance  and 
glorify  one ;  and  is  better  taught  by  a  mod 
erate  and  dainty  exercise,  such  as  rambling  in 
the  fields,  rowing,  skating,  hunting,  than  by  the 
downright  drudgery  of  the  farmer  and  the  smith. 
I  would  not  quite  forget  the  venerable  counsel 
of  the  Egyptian  mysteries,  which  declared  that 


242  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

"  there  were  two  pairs  of  eyes  in  man,  and  it 
is  requisite  that  the  pair  which  are  beneath 
should  be  closed,  when  the  pair  that  are  above 
them  perceive,  and  that  when  the  pair  above 
are  closed,  those  which  are  beneath  should  be 
opened."  Yet  I  will  suggest  that  no  separation 
from  labor  can  be  without  some  loss  of  power 
and  of  truth  to  the  seer  himself;  that,  I  doubt 
not,  the  faults  and  vices  of  our  literature  and 
philosophy,  their  too  great  fineness,  effeminacy, 
and  melancholy,  are  attributable  to  the  enervated 
and  sickly  habits  of  the  literary  class.  Better 
that  the  book  should  not  be  quite  so  good,  and 
the  book-maker  abler  and  better,  and  not  him 
self  often  a  ludicrous  contrast  to  all  that  he  has 
written. 

But  granting  that  for  ends  so  sacred  and  dear 
some  relaxation  must  be  had,  I  think  that  if  a 
man  find  in  himself  any  strong  bias  to  poetry, 
to  art,  to  the  contemplative  life,  drawing  him  to 
these  things  with  a  devotion  incompatible  with 
good  husbandry,  that  man  ought  to  reckon  early 
with  himself,  and,  respecting  the  compensations 
of  the  Universe,  ought  to  ransom  himself  from 
the  duties  of  economy  by  a  certain  rigor  and 
privation  in  his  habits.  For  privileges  so  rare 
and  grand,  let  him  not  stint  to  pay  a  great  tax. 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  243 

Let  him  be  a  casnobite,  a  pauper,  and  if  need 
be,  celibate  also.  Let  him  learn  to  eat  his  meals 
standing,  and  to  relish  the  taste  of  fair  water  and 
black  bread.  He  may  leave  to  others  the  costly 
conveniences  of  housekeeping,  and  large  hos 
pitality,  and  the  possession  of  works  of  art.  Let 
him  feel  that  genius  is  a  hospitality,  and  that  he 
who  can  create  works  of  art  needs  not  collect 
them.  He  must  live  in  a  chamber,  and  postpone 
his  self-indulgence,  forewarned  and  forearmed 
against  that  frequent  misfortune  of  men  of  gen 
ius, —  the  taste  for  luxury.  This  is  the  tragedy 
of  genius; — attempting  to  drive  along  the  eclip 
tic  with  one  horse  of  the  heavens  and  one  horse 
of  the  earth,  there  is  only  discord  and  ruin  and 
downfall  to  chariot  and  charioteer. 

The  duty  that  every  man  should  assume  his 
own  vows,  should  call  the  institutions  of  society 
to  account,  and  examine  their  fitness  to  him, 
gains  in  emphasis  if  we  look  at  our  modes  of 
living.  Is  our  housekeeping  sacred  and  hon 
orable  ?  Does  it  raise  and  inspire  us,  or  does 
it  cripple  us  instead  ?  1  ought  to  be  armed  by 
every  part  and  function  of  my  household,  by  all 
my  social  function,  by  my  economy,  by  my  feast 
ing,  by  my  voting,  by  my  traffic.  Yet  I  am 
almost  no  party  to  any  of  these  things.  Custom 


244  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

does  it  for  me,  gives  me  no  power  therefrom, 
and  runs  me  in  debt  to  boot.  We  spend  our 
incomes  for  paint  and  paper,  for  a  hundred  trifles, 
I  know  not  what,  and  not  for  the  things  of  a 
man.  Our  expense  is  almost  all  for  conformity. 
It  is  for  cake  that  we  run  in  debt ;  it  is  not  the 
intellect,  not  the  heart,  not  beauty,  not  worship, 
that  costs  so  much.  Why  needs  any  man  be 
rich  ?  Why  must  he  have  horses,  fine  garments, 
handsome  apartments,  access  to  public  houses 
and  places  of  amusement  ?  Only  for  want  of 
thought.  Give  his  mind  a  new  image,  and  he 
flees  into  a  solitary  garden  or  garret  to  enjoy 
it,  and  is  richer  with  that  dream  than  the  fee 
of  a  county  could  make  him.  But  we  are  first 
thoughtless,  and  then  find  that  we  are  moneyless. 
We  are  first  sensual,  and  then  must  be  rich.  We 
dare  not  trust  our  wit  for  making  our  house 
pleasant  to  our  friend,  and  so  we  buy  ice-creams. 
He  is  accustomed  to  carpets,  and  we  have  not 
sufficient  character  to  put  floor  cloths  out  of  his 
mind  whilst  he  stays  in  the  house,  and  so  we 
pile  the  floor  with  carpets.  Let  the  house  rather 
be  a  temple  of  the  Furies  of  Lacedaemon,  for 
midable  and  holy  to  all,  which  none  but  a  Spartan 
may  enter  or  so  much  as  behold.  As  soon  as 
there  is  faith,  as  soon  as  there  is  society,  comfits 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  245 

and  cushions  will  be  left  to  slaves.  Expense 
will  be  inventive  and  heroic.  We  shall  eat  hard 
and  lie  hard,  we  shall  dwell  like  the  ancient 
Romans  in  narrow  tenements,  whilst  our  public 
edifices,  like  theirs,  will  be  worthy  for  their  pro 
portion  of  the  landscape  in  which  we  set  them, 
for  conversation,  for  art,  for  music,  for  worship. 
We  shall  be  rich  to  great  purposes  ;  poor  only 
for  selfish  ones. 

Now  what  help  for  these  evils  ?  How  can  the 
man  who  has  learned  but  one  art,  procure  all  the 
conveniences  of  life  honestly  ?  Shall  we  say  all 
we  think  ?  —  Perhaps  with  his  own  hands.  Sup 
pose  he  collects  or  makes  them  ill;  —  yet  he 
has  learned  their  lesson.  If  he  cannot  do  that  ? 
—  Then  perhaps  he  can  go  without.  Immense 
wisdom  and  riches  are  in  that.  It  is  better  to 
go  without,  than  to  have  them  at  too  great  a  cost. 
Let  us  learn  the  meaning  of  economy.  Economy 
is  a  high,  humane  office,  a  sacrament,  when  its 
aim  is  grand ;  when  it  is  the  prudence  of  simple 
tastes,  when  it  is  practised  for  freedom,  or  love,  or 
devotion.  Much  of  the  economy  which  we  see  in 
houses  is  of  a  base  origin,  and  is  best  kept  out 
of  sight.  Parched  corn  eaten  to-day,  that  I  may 
have  roast  fowl  to  my  dinner  Sunday,  is  a  base 
ness  ;  but  parched  corn  and  a  house  with  one 


246  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

apartment,  that  I  may  be  free  of  all  perturba 
tions,  that  I  may  be  serene  and  docile  to  what 
the  mind  shall  speak,  and  girt  and  road-ready 
for  the  lowest  mission  of  knowledge  or  goodwill, 
is  frugality  for  gods  and  heroes. 

Can  we  not  learn  the  lesson  of  self-help  ?  So 
ciety  is  full  of  infirm  people,  who  incessantly 
summon  others  to  serve  them.  They  contrive 
everywhere  to  exhaust  for  their  single  comfort 
the  entire  means  and  appliances  of  that  luxury 
to  which  our  invention  has  yet  attained.  Sofas, 
ottomans,  stoves,  wine,  game-fowl,  spices,  per 
fumes,  rides,  the  theatre,  entertainments,  —  all 
these  they  want,  they  need,  and  whatever  can  be 
suggested  more  than  these  they  crave  also,  as 
if  it  was  the  bread  which  should  keep  them 
from  starving  ;  and  if  they  miss  any  one,  they 
represent  themselves  as  the  most  wronged  and 
most  wretched  persons  on  earth.  One  must  have 
been  born  and  bred  with  them  to  know  how  to 
prepare  a  meal  for  their  learned  stomach.  Mean 
time  they  never  bestir  themselves  to  serve  an 
other  person ;  not  they  !  they  have  a  great  deal 
more  to  do  for  themselves  than  they  can  pos 
sibly  perform,  nor  do  they  once  perceive  the  cruel 
joke  of  their  lives,  but  the  more  odious  they 
grow,  the  sharper  is  the  tone  of  their  complaining 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  247 

and  craving.  Can  anything  be  so  elegant  as  to 
have  few  wants  and  to  serve  them  one's  self,  so 
as  to  have  somewhat  left  to  give,  instead  of  being 
always  prompt  to  grab?  It  is  more  elegant  to 
answer  one's  own  needs  than  to  be  richly  served; 
inelegant  perhaps  it  may  look  to-day,  and  to  a 
few,  but  it  is  an  elegance  forever  and  to  all. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  absurd  and  pedantic  in 
reform.  I  do  not  wish  to  push  my  criticism  on 
the  state  of  things  around  me  to  that  extrava 
gant  mark  that  shall  compel  me  to  suicide,  or 
to  an  absolute  isolation  from  the  advantages  of 
civil  society.  If  we  suddenly  plant  our  foot  and 
say,  —  I  will  neither  eat  nor  drink  nor  wear  nor 
touch  any  food  or  fabric  which  I  do  not  know 
to  be  innocent,  or  deal  with  any  person  whose 
whole  manner  of  life  is  not  clear  and  rational, 
we  shall  stand  still.  Whose  is  so  ?  Not  mine  ; 
not  thine  ;  not  his.  But  I  think  we  must  clear 
ourselves  each  one  by  the  interrogation,  whether 
we  have  earned  our  bread  to-day  by  the  hearty 
contribution  of  our  energies  to  the  common 
benefit ;  and  we  must  not  cease  to  tend  to  the 
correction  of  flagrant  wrongs,  by  laying  one 
stone  aright  every  day. 

But  the  idea  which  now  begins  to  agitate 
society  has  a  wider  scope  than  our  daily  employ- 


248  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

ments,  our  households,  and  the  institutions  of 
property.  We  are  to  revise  the  whole  of  our 
social  structure,  the  State,  the  school,  religion, 
marriage,  trade,  science,  and  explore  their  foun 
dations  in  our  own  nature ;  we  are  to  see  that 
the  world  not  only  fitted  the  former  men,  but 
fits  us,  and  to  clear  ourselves  of  every  usage 
which  has  not  its  roots  in  our  own  mind.1  What 
is  a  man  born  for  but  to  be  a  Reformer,  a  Re- 
maker  of  what  man  has  made;  a  renouncer  of 
lies  ;  a  restorer  of  truth  and  good,  imitating 
that  great  Nature  which  embosoms  us  all,  and 
which  sleeps  no  moment  on  an  old  past,  but 
every  hour  repairs  herself,  yielding  us  every 
morning  a  new  day,  and  with  every  pulsation  a 
new  life?  Let  him  renounce  everything  which 
is  not  true  to  him,  and  put  all  his  practices  back 
on  their  first  thoughts,  and  do  nothing  for  which 
he  has  not  the  whole  world  for  his  reason.  If 
there  are  inconveniences  and  what  is  called  ruin 
in  the  way,  because  we  have  so  enervated  and 
maimed  ourselves,  yet  it  would  be  like  dying 
of  perfumes  to  sink  in  the  effort  to  re-attach 
the  deeds  of  every  day  to  the  holy  and  myste 
rious  recesses  of  life. 

"The  power  which  is  at  once  spring  and  regu 
lator  in  all  efforts  of  reform   is   the   conviction 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  249 

that  there  is  an  infinite  worthiness  in  man,  which 
will  appear  at  the  call  of  worth,  and  that  all 
particular  reforms  are  the  removing  of  some 
impediment.  Is  it  not  the  highest  duty  that 
man  should  be  honored  in  us  ?  I  ought  not 
to  allow  any  man,  because  he  has  broad  lands,  to 
feel  that  he  is  rich  in  my  presence.  I  ought  to 
make  him  feel  that  I  can  do  without  his  riches, 
that  I  cannot  be  bought,  —  neither  by  comfort, 
neither  by  pride,  —  and  though  I  be  utterly  pen 
niless,  and  receiving  bread  from  him,  that  he 
is  the  poor  man  beside  me.  And  if,  at  the 
same  time,  a  woman  or  a  child  discovers  a  sen 
timent  of  piety,  or  a  juster  way  of  thinking  than 
mine,  I  ought  to  confess  it  by  my  respect  and 
obedience,  though  it  go  to  alter  my  whole  way 
of  life.1 

The  Americans  have  many  virtues,  but  they 
have  not  Faith  and  Hope.  I  know  no  two 
words  whose  meaning  is  more  lost  sight  of. 
We  use  these  words  as  if  they  were  as  obsolete 
as  Selah  and  Amen.  And  yet  they  have  the 
broadest  meaning,  and  the  most  cogent  appli 
cation  to  Boston  in  this  year.  The  Americans 
have  little  faith.  They  rely  on  the  power  of  a 
dollar ;  they  are  deaf  to  a  sentiment.  They 
think  you  may  talk  the  north  wind  down  as 


250  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

easily  as  raise  society  ;  and  no  class  more  faith 
less  than  the  scholars  or  intellectual  men.  Now 
if  I  talk  with  a  sincere  wise  man,  and  my  friend, 
with  a  poet,  with  a  conscientious  youth  who  is  still 
under  the  dominion  of  his  own  wild  thoughts, 
and  not  yet  harnessed  in  the  team  of  society  to 
drag  with  us  all  in  the  ruts  of  custom,  I  see  at 
once  how  paltry  is  all  this  generation  of  unbe 
lievers,  and  what  a  house  of  cards  their  insti 
tutions  are,  and  I  see  what  one  brave  man, 
what  one  great  thought  executed  might  effect. 
I  see  that  the  reason  of  the  distrust  of  the  prac 
tical  man  in  all  theory,  is  his  inability  to  per 
ceive  the  means  whereby  we  work.  Look,  he 
says,  at  the  tools  with  which  this  world  of  yours 
is  to  be  built.  As  we  cannot  make  a  planet, 
with  atmosphere,  rivers,  and  forests,  by  means 
of  the  best  carpenters'  or  engineers'  tools,  with 
chemist's  laboratory  and  smith's  forge  to  boot, 
—  so  neither  can  we  ever  construct  that  heavenly 
society  you  prate  of  out  of  foolish,  sick,  selfish 
men  and  women,  such  as  we  know  them  to  be. 
But  the  believer  not  only  beholds  his  heaven 
to  be  possible,  but  already  to  begin  to  exist,  - 
not  by  the  men  or  materials  the  statesman  uses, 
but  by  men  transfigured  and  raised  above  them 
selves  by  the  power  of  principles.  To  princi- 


A.  Branson  Alcott 


talk  with  a 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  253 

soned  by  the  malice,  slyness,  indolence,  and 
alienation  of  domestics.  Let  any  two  matrons 
meet,  and  observe  how  soon  their  conversation 
turns  on  the  troubles  from  their  "help,"  as  our 
phrase  is.  In  every  knot  of  laborers  the  rich 
man  does  not  feel  himself  among  his  friends,  — 
and  at  the  polls  he  finds  them  arrayed  in  a  mass 
in  distinct  opposition  to  him.  We  complain 
that  the  politics  of  masses  of  the  people  are 
controlled  by  designing  men,  and  led  in  oppo 
sition  to  manifest  justice  and  the  common  weal, 
and  to  their  own  interest.  But  the  people  do 
not  wish  to  be  represented  or  ruled  by  the 
ignorant  and  base.  They  only  vote  for  these, 
because  they  were  asked  with  the  voice  and 
semblance  of  kindness.  They  will  not  vote  for 
them  long.  They  inevitably  prefer  wit  and  pro 
bity.  To  use  an  Egyptian  metaphor,  it  is  not 
their  will  for  any  long  time  "  to  raise  the  nails 
of  wild  beasts,  and  to  depress  the  heads  of  the 
sacred  birds."  x  Let  our  affection  flow  out  to 
our  fellows  ;  it  would  operate  in  a  day  the  great 
est  of  all  revolutions.  It  is  better  to  work  on 
institutions  by  the  sun  than  by  the  wind.  The 
State  must  consider  the  poor  man,  and  all  voices 
must  speak  for  him.  Every  child  that  is  born 
must  have  a  just  chance  for  his  bread.  Let  the 


254  '  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

amelioration  in  our  laws  of  property  proceed 
from  the  concession  of  the  rich,  not  from  the 
grasping  of  the  poor.  Let  us  begin  by  habitual 
imparting.  Let  us  understand  that  the  equi 
table  rule  is,  that  no  one  should  take  more  than 
his  share,  let  him  be  ever  so  rich.  Let  me  feel 
that  I  am  to  be  a  lover.  I  am  to  see  to  it  that 
the  world  is  the  better  for  me,  and  to  find  my 
reward  in  the  act.  Love  would  put  a  new  face 
on  this  weary  old  world  in  which  we  dwell  as 
pagans  and  enemies  too  long,  and  it  would  warm 
the  heart  to  see  how  fast  the  vain  diplomacy  of 
statesmen,  the  impotence  of  armies,  and  navies, 
and  lines  of  defence,  would  be  superseded  by 
this  unarmed  child.  Love  will  creep  where  it 
cannot  go,  will  accomplish  that  by  impercepti 
ble  methods,  —  being  its  own  lever,  fulcrum, 
and  power,  —  which  force  could  never  achieve. 
Have  you  not  seen  in  the  woods,  in  a  late  au 
tumn  morning,  a  poor  fungus  or  mushroom, — 
a  plant  without  any  solidity,  nay,  that  seemed 
nothing  but  a  soft  mush  or  jelly,  —  by  its  con 
stant,  total,  and  inconceivably  gentle  pushing, 
manage  to  break  its  way  up  through  the  frosty 
ground,  and  actually  to  lift  a  hard  crust  on  its 
head  ?  It  is  the  symbol  of  the  power  of  kind 
ness.  The  virtue  of  this  principle  in  human 


MAN  THE  REFORMER  255 

society  in  application  to  great  interests  is  obso 
lete  and  forgotten.  Once  or  twice  in  history  it 
has  been  tried  in  illustrious  instances,  with  sig 
nal  success.  This  great,  overgrown,  dead  Chris 
tendom  of  ours  still  keeps  alive  at  least  the 
name  of  a  lover  of  mankind.  But  one  day  all 
men  will  be  lovers  ;  and  every  calamity  will  be 
dissolved  in  the  universal  sunshine. 

Will  you  suffer  me  to  add  one  trait  more  to 
this  portrait  of  man  the  reformer  ?  The  medi 
ator  between  the  spiritual  and  the  actual  world 
should  have  a  great  prospective  prudence.  An 
Arabian  poet  describes  his  hero  by  saying, 

Sunshine  was  he 
In  the  winter  day; 
And  in  the  midsummer 
Coolness  and  shade. 

He  who  would  help  himself  and  others  should 
not  be  a  subject  of  irregular  and  interrupted 
impulses  of  virtue,  but  a  continent,  persisting, 
immovable  person,  —  such  as  we  have  seen  a 
few  scattered  up  and  down  in  time  for  the  bless 
ing  of  the  world  ;  men  who  have  in  the  gravity 
of  their  nature  a  quality  which  answers  to  the 
fly-wheel  in  a  mill,  which  distributes  the  motion 
equably  over  all  the  wheels  and  hinders  it  from 
falling  unequally  and  suddenly  in  destructive 


256  MAN  THE  REFORMER 

shocks.  It  is  better  that  joy  should  be  spread 
over  all  the  day  in  the  form  of  strength,  than 
that  it  should  be  concentrated  into  ecstasies,  full 
of  danger  and  followed  by  reactions.  There  is 
a  sublime  prudence  which  is  the  very  highest 
that  we  know  of  man,'"wriich,  believing  in  a  vast 
future,  —  sure  of  more  to  come  than  is  yet  seen, 
—  postpones  always  the  present  hour  to  the 
whole  life  ;  postpones  talent  to  genius,  and  spe 
cial  results  to  character.  As  the  merchant  gladly 
takes  money  from  his  income  to  add  to  his  cap 
ital,  so  is  the  great  man  very  willing  to  lose  par 
ticular  powers  and  talents,  so  that  he  gain  in  the 
elevation  of  his  life.  The  opening  of  the  spir 
itual  senses  disposes  men  ever  to  greater  sac 
rifices,  to  leave  their  signal  talents,  their  best 
means  and  skill  of  procuring  a  present  success, 
their  power  and  their  fame,  —  to  cast  all  things 
behind,  in  the  insatiable  thirst  for  divine  com 
munications.  A  purer  fame,  a  greater  power  re 
wards  the  sacrifice.  It  is  the  conversion  of  our 
harvest  into  seed.  As  the  farmer  casts  into  the 
ground  the  finest  ears  of  his  grain,  the  time  will 
come  when  we  too  shall  hold  nothing  back,  but 
shall  eagerly  convert  more  than  we  now  possess 
into  means  and  powers,  when  we  shall  be  will 
ing  to  sow  the  sun  and  the  moon  for  seeds.1 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

READ    AT    THE    MASONIC    TEMPLE,    BOSTON, 
DECEMBER  2,  1841 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

THE  TIMES,  as  we  say  —  or  the  present 
aspects  of  our  social  state,  the  Laws,  Di 
vinity,  Natural  Science,  Agriculture,  Art,  Trade, 
Letters,  have  their  root  in  an  invisible  spiritual 
reality.  To  appear  in  these  aspects,  they  must 
first  exist,  or  have  some  necessary  foundation. 
Beside  all  the  small  reasons  we  assign,  there  is 
a  great  reason  for  the  existence  of  every  extant 
fact ;  a  reason  which  lies  grand  and  immovable, 
often  unsuspected,  behind  it  in  silence.  The 
Times  are  the  masquerade  of  the  Eternities ; 
trivial  to  the  dull,  tokens  of  noble  and  majestic 
agents  to  the  wise ;  the  receptacle  in  which  the 
Past  leaves  its  history  ;  the  quarry  out  of  which 
the  genius  of  to-day  is  building  up  the  Future.1 
The  Times  —  the  nations,  manners,  institutions, 
opinions,  votes,  are  to  be  studied  as  omens,  as 
sacred  leaves,  whereon  a  weighty  sense  is  in 
scribed,  if  we  have  the  wit  and  the  love  to  search 
it  out.  Nature  itself  seems  to  propound  to  us 
this  topic,  and  to  invite  us  to  explore  the  mean 
ing  of  the  conspicuous  facts  of  the  day.  Every 
thing  that  is  popular,  it  has  been  said,  deserves 
the  attention  of  the  philosopher:  and  this  for  the 


26o          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

obvious  reason,  that  although  it  may  not  be  of 
any  worth  in  itself,  yet  it  characterizes  the  people. 
Here  is  very  good  matter  to  be  handled,  if 
we  are  skilful ;  an  abundance  of  important  prac 
tical  questions  which  it  behooves  us  to  under 
stand.  Let  us  examine  the  pretensions  of  the 
attacking  and  defending  parties.  Here  is  this 
great  fact  of  Conservatism,  entrenched  in  its  im 
mense  redoubts,  with  Himmaleh  for  its  front, 
and  Atlas  for  its  flank,  and  Andes  for  its  rear, 
and  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  seas  for  its  ditches 
and  trenches  ;  which  has  planted  its  crosses,  and 
crescents,  and  stars  and  stripes,  and  various  signs 
and  badges  of  possession,  over  every  rood  of  the 
planet,  and  says, c  I  will  hold  fast ;  and  to  whom 
I  will,  will  I  give;  and  whom  I  will,  will  I  exclude 
and  starve:'  so  says  Conservatism;  and  all  the 
children  of  men  attack  the  colossus  in  their  youth, 
and  all,  or  all  but  a  few,  bow  before  it  when  they 
are  old.  A  necessity  not  yet  commanded,  a  neg 
ative  imposed  on  the  will  of  man  by  his  condi 
tion,  a  deficiency  in  his  force,  is  the  foundation 
on  which  it  rests.  Let  this  side  be  fairly  stated. 
Meantime,  on  the  other  part,  arises  Reform,  and 
offers  the  sentiment  of  Love  as  an  overmatch 
to  this  material  might.1  I  wish  to  consider  well 
this  affirmative  side,  which  has  a  loftier  port  and 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          261 

reason  than  heretofore,  which  encroaches  on  the 
other  every  day,  puts  it  out  of  countenance,  out 
of  reason,  and  out  of  temper,  and  leaves  it  no 
thing  but  silence  and  possession. 

The  fact  of  aristocracy,  with  its  two  weapons 
of  wealth  and  manners,  is  as  commanding  a  fea 
ture  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  American 
republic  as  of  old  Rome,  or  modern  England. 
The  reason  and  influence  of  wealth,  the  aspect 
of  philosophy  and  religion,  and  the  tendencies 
which  have  acquired  the  name  of  Transcenden 
talism  in  Old  and  New  England  ;  the  aspect  of 
poetry,  as  the  exponent  and  interpretation  of 
these  things  ;  the  fuller  development  and  the 
freer  play  of  Character  as  a  social  and  political 
agent ;  —  these  and  other  related  topics  will  in 
turn  come  to  be  considered. 

But  the  subject  of  the  Times  is  not  an  ab 
stract  question.  We  talk  of  the  world,  but  we 
mean  a  few  men  and  women.  If  you  speak  of 
the  age,  you  mean  your  own  platoon  of  people, 
as  Dante  and  Milton  painted  in  colossal  their 
platoons,  and  called  them  Heaven  and  Hell. 
In  our  idea  of  progress,  we  do  not  go  out  of 
this  personal  picture.  We  do  not  think  the  sky 
will  be  bluer,  or  honey  sweeter,  or  our  climate 
more  temperate,  but  only  that  our  relation  to 


262          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

our  fellows  will  be  simpler  and  happier.  What 
is  the  reason  to  be  given  for  this  extreme  attrac 
tion  which  persons  have  for  us,  but  that  they  are 
the  Age  ?  they  are  the  results  of  the  Past ;  they 
are  the  heralds  of  the  Future.  They  indicate, 
—  these  witty,  suffering,  blushing,  intimidating 
figures  of  the  only  race  in  which  there  are  indi 
viduals  or  changes,  how  far  on  the  Fate  has  gone, 
and  what  it  drives  at.1  As  trees  make  scenery, 
and  constitute  the  hospitality  of  the  landscape, 
so  persons  are  the  world  to  persons, — a  cunning 
mystery  by  which  the  Great  Desert  of  thoughts 
and  of  planets  takes  this  engaging  form,  to  bring, 
as  it  would  seem,  its  meanings  nearer  to  the  mind. 
Thoughts  walk  and  speak,  and  look  with  eyes 
at  me,  and  transport  me  into  new  and  magnifi 
cent  scenes.  These  are  the  pungent  instructors 
who  thrill  the  heart  of  each  of  us,  and  make  all 
other  teaching  formal  and  cold.  How  I  follow 
them  with  aching  heart,  with  pining  desire  !  I 
count  myself  nothing  before  them.  I  would  die 
for  them  with  joy.  They  can  do  what  they  will 
with  me.  How  they  lash  us  with  those  tongues  ! 
How  they  make  the  tears  start,  make  us  blush 
and  turn  pale,  and  lap  us  in  Elysium  to  sooth 
ing  dreams  and  castles  in  the  air  !  By  tones  of 
triumph,  of  dear  love,  by  threats,  by  pride  that 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          263 

freezes,  these  have  the  skill  to  make  the  world 
look  bleak  and  inhospitable,  or  seem  the  nest 
of  tenderness  and  joy.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the 
miracles  which  poetry  attributes  to  the  music 
of  Orpheus,  when  I  remember  what  I  have  ex 
perienced  from  the  varied  notes  of  the  human 
voice.  They  are  an  incalculable  energy  which 
countervails  all  other  forces  in  nature,  because 
they  are  the  channel  of  supernatural  powers. 
There  is  no  interest  or  institution  so  poor  and 
withered,  but  if  a  new  strong  man  could  be  born 
into  it,  he  would  immediately  redeem  and  replace 
it.  A  personal  ascendency, —  that  is  the  only 
fact  much  worth  considering.  I  remember,  some 
years  ago, somebody  shocked  a  circle  of  friends  of 
order  here  in  Boston,  who  supposed  that  our  peo 
ple  were  identified  with  their  religious  denomi 
nations,  by  declaring  that  an  eloquent  man,  —  let 
him  be  of  what  sect  soever, — would  be  ordained 
at  once  in  one  of  our  metropolitan  churches. 
To  be  sure  he  would ;  and  not  only  in  ours  but 
in  any  church,  mosque,  or  temple  on  the  planet ; 
but  he  must  be  eloquent,  able  to  supplant  our 
method  and  classification  by  the  superior  beauty 
of  his  own.1  Every  fact  we  have  was  brought 
here  by  some  person;  and  there  is  none  that  will 
not  change  and  pass  away  before  a  person  whose 


264          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

nature  is  broader  than  the  person  which  the  fact 
in  question  represents.  And  so  I  find  the  Age 
walking  about  in  happy  and  hopeful  natures,  in 
strong  eyes  and  pleasant  thoughts,  and  think  I 
read  it  nearer  and  truer  so,  than  in  the  statute- 
book,  or  in  the  investments  of  capital,  which 
rather  celebrate  with  mournful  music  the  obse 
quies  of  the  last  age.  In  the  brain  of  a  fanatic; 
in  the  wild  hope  of  a  mountain  boy,  called  by 
city  boys  very  ignorant,  because  they  do  not 
know  what  his  hope  has  certainly  apprized  him 
shall  be;  in  the  love-glance  of  a  girl;  in  the 
hair-splitting  conscientiousness  of  some  eccen 
tric  person  who  has  found  some  new  scruple  to 
embarrass  himself  and  his  neighbors  withal  is  to 
be  found  that  which  shall  constitute  the  times 
to  come,  more  than  in  the  now  organized  and  ac 
credited  oracles.  For  whatever  is  affirmative  and 
now  advancing,  contains  it.  I  think  that  only  is 
real  which  men  love  and  rejoice  in ;  not  what 
they  tolerate,  but  what  they  choose ;  what  they 
embrace  and  avow,  and  not  the  things  which 
chill,  benumb,  and  terrify  them. 

And  so  why  not  draw  for  these  times  a  por 
trait  gallery  ?  Let  us  paint  the  painters.  Whilst 
the  Daguerreotypist,  with  camera-obscura  and 
silver  plate,  begins  now  to  traverse  the  land, 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          265 

let  us  set  up  our  Camera  also,  and  let  the  sun 
paint  the  people.  Let  us  paint  the  agitator,  and 
the  man  of  the  old  school,  and  the  member  of 
Congress,  and  the  college  professor,  the  formi 
dable  editor,  the  priest  and  reformer,  the  con 
templative  girl,  and  the  fair  aspirant  for  fashion 
and  opportunities,  the  woman  of  the  world  who 
has  tried  and  knows ;  —  let  us  examine  how 
well  she  knows.  Could  we  indicate  the  indi 
cators,  indicate  those  who  most  accurately  re 
present  every  good  and  evil  tendency  of  the 
general  mind,  in  the  just  order  which  they  take 
on  this  canvas  of  Time,  so  that  all  witnesses 
should  recognize  a  spiritual  law  as  each  well- 
known  form  flitted  for  a  moment  across  the 
wall,  we  should  have  a  series  of  sketches  which 
would  report  to  the  next  ages  the  color  and 
quality  of  ours. 

Certainly  I  think  if  this  were  done  there 
would  be  much  to  admire  as  well  as  to  con 
demn  ;  souls  of  as  lofty  a  port  as  any  in  Greek 
or  Roman  fame  might  appear ;  men  of  great 
heart,  of  strong  hand,  and  of  persuasive  speech  ; 
subtle  thinkers,  and  men  of  wide  sympathy, 
and  an  apprehension  which  looks  over  all  his 
tory  and  everywhere  recognizes  its  own.  To 
be  sure,  there  will  be  fragments  and  hints  of 


266          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

men,  more  than  enough :  bloated  promises, 
which  end  in  nothing  or  little.  And  then  truly 
great  men,  but  with  some  defect  in  their  com 
position  which  neutralizes  their  whole  force. 
Here  is  a  Damascus  blade,  such  as  you  may 
search  through  nature  in  vain  to  parallel,  laid 
up  on  the  shelf  in  some  village  to  rust  and 
ruin.  And  how  many  seem  not  quite  available 
for  that  idea  which  they  represent  ?  Now  and 
then  comes  a  bolder  spirit,  I  should  rather  say, 
a  more  surrendered  soul,  more  informed  and  led 
by  God,  which  is  much  in  advance  of  the  rest, 
quite  beyond  their  sympathy,  but  predicts  what 
shall  soon  be  the  general  fulness  ;  as  when  we 
stand  by  the  seashore,  whilst  the  tide  is  coming 
in,  a  wave  comes  up  the  beach  far  higher  than 
any  foregoing  one,  and  recedes  ;  and  for  a  long 
while  none  comes  up  to  that  mark ;  but  after 
some  time  the  whole  sea  is  there  and  beyond  it. 
But  we  are  not  permitted  to  stand  as  spec 
tators  of  the  pageant  which  the  times  exhibit ; 
we  are  parties  also,  and  have  a  responsibility 
which  is  not  to  be  declined.  A  little  while  this 
interval  of  wonder  and  comparison  is  permitted 
us,  but  to  the  end  that  we  shall  play  a  manly 
part.  As  the  solar  system  moves  forward  in  the 
heavens,  certain  stars  open  before  us,  and  cer- 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          267 

tain  stars  close  up  behind  us ;  so  is  man's  life. 
The  reputations  that  were  great  and  inaccessi 
ble  change  and  tarnish.  How  great  were  once 
Lord  Bacon's  dimensions  !  he  is  now  reduced 
almost  to  the  middle  height ;  and  many  another 
star  has  turned  out  to  be  a  planet  or  an  aster 
oid:  only  a  few  are  the  fixed  stars  which  have 
no  parallax,  or  none  for  us.  The  change  and  de 
cline  of  old  reputations  are  the  gracious  marks 
of  our  own  growth.  Slowly,  like  light  of  morn 
ing,  it  steals  on  us,  the  new  fact,  that  we  who 
were  pupils  or  aspirants  are  now  society :  do 
compose  a  portion  of  that  head  and  heart  we 
are  wont  to  think  worthy  of  all  reverence  and 
heed.  We  are  the  representatives  of  religion 
and  intellect,  and  stand  in  the  light  of  Ideas, 
whose  rays  stream  through  us  to  those  younger 
and  more  in  the  dark.  What  further  relations 
we  sustain,  what  new  lodges  we  are  entering,  is 
now  unknown.  To-day  is  a  king  in  disguise. 
To-day  always  looks  mean  to  the  thoughtless, 
in  the  face  of  an  uniform  experience  that  all 
good  and  great  and  happy  actions  are  made  up 
precisely  of  these  blank  to-days.1  Let  us  not 
be  so  deceived.  Let  us  unmask  the  king  as  he 
passes.  Let  us  not  inhabit  times  of  wonderful 
and  various  promise  without  divining  their  ten- 


268          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

dency.  Let  us  not  see  the  foundations  of  na 
tions,  and  of  a  new  and  better  order  of  things 
laid,  with  roving  eyes,  and  an  attention  preoccu 
pied  with  trifles. 

The  two  omnipresent  parties  of  History,  the 
party  of  the  Past  and  the  party  of  the  Future, 
divide  society  to-day  as  of  old.  Here  is  the  in 
numerable  multitude  of  those  who  accept  the 
state  and  the  church  from  the  last  generation, 
and  stand  on  no  argument  but  possession.  They 
have  reason  also,  and,  as  I  think,  better  reason 
than  is  commonly  stated.  No  Burke,  no  Met- 
ternich  has  yet  done  full  justice  to  the  side  of 
conservatism.  But  this  class,  however  large,  re 
lying  not  on  the  intellect  but  on  the  instinct, 
blends  itself  with  the  brute  forces  of  nature,  is 
respectable  only  as  nature  is  ;  but  the  individ 
uals  have  no  attraction  for  us.  It  is  the  dis 
senter,  the  theorist,  the  aspirant,  who  is  quitting 
this  ancient  domain  to  embark  on  seas  of  adven 
ture,  who  engages  our  interest.  Omitting  then 
for  the  present  all  notice  of  the  stationary  class, 
we  shall  find  that  the  movement  party  divides 
itself  into  two  classes,  the  actors,  and  the  stu 
dents. 

The  actors  constitute  that  great  army  of  mar 
tyrs  who,  at  least  in  America,  by  their  con- 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          269 

science  and  philanthropy,  occupy  the  ground 
which  Calvinism  occupied  in  the  last  age,  and 
compose  the  visible  church  of  the  existing  gen 
eration.  The  present  age  will  be  marked  by  its 
harvest  of  projects  for  the  reform  of  domes 
tic,  civil,  literary,  and  ecclesiastical  institutions. 
The  leaders  of  the  crusades  against  War,  Negro 
slavery,  Intemperance,  Government  based  on 
force,  Usages  of  trade,  Court  and  Custom-house 
Oaths,  and  so  on  to  the  agitators  on  the  sys 
tem  of  Education  and  the  laws  of  Property,  are 
the  right  successors  of  Luther,  Knox,  Robinson, 
Fox,  Penn,  Wesley,  and  Whitefield.  They  have 
the  same  virtues  and  vices ;  the  same  noble 
impulse,  and  the  same  bigotry.  These  move 
ments  are  on  all  accounts  important ;  they  not 
only  check  the  special  abuses,  but  they  educate 
the  conscience  and  the  intellect  of  the  people. 
How  can  such  a  question  as  the  Slave-trade 
be  agitated  for  forty  years  by  all  the  Christian 
nations,  without  throwing  great  light  on  ethics 
into  the  general  mind  ?  The  fury  with  which 
the  slave-trader  defends  every  inch  of  his  bloody 
deck  and  his  howling  auction  -  platform,  is  a 
trumpet  to  alarm  the  ear  of  mankind,  to  wake 
the  dull,  and  drive  all  neutrals  to  take  sides  and 
to  listen  to  the  argument  and  the  verdict.  The 


270          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

Temperance-question,  which  rides  the  conver 
sation  often  thousand  circles,  and  is  tacitly  re 
called  at  every  public  and  at  every  private  table, 
drawing  with  it  all  the  curious  ethics  of  the 
Pledge,  of  the  Wine-question,  of  the  equity  of 
the  manufacture  and  the  trade,  is  a  gymnas 
tic  training  to  the  casuistry  and  conscience  of 
the  time.  Anti-masonry  had  a  deep  right  and 
wrong,  which  gradually  emerged  to  sight  out 
of  the  turbid  controversy.  The  political  ques 
tions  touching  the  Banks  ;  the  Tariff;  the  limits 
of  the  executive  power  ;  the  right  of  the  con 
stituent  to  instruct  the  representative ;  the  treat 
ment  of  the  Indians;  the  Boundary  wars;  the 
Congress  of  nations  ;  are  all  pregnant  with  eth 
ical  conclusions ;  and  it  is  well  if  government 
and  our  social  order  can  extricate  themselves 
from  these  alembics  and  find  themselves  still 
government  and  social  order.  The  student  of 
history  will  hereafter  compute  the  singular  value 
of  our  endless  discussion  of  questions  to  the 
mind  of  the  period. 

Whilst  each  of  these  aspirations  and  attempts 
of  the  people  for  the  Better  is  magnified  by  the 
natural  exaggeration  of  its  advocates,  until  it 
excludes  the  others  from  sight,  and  repels  dis 
creet  persons  by  the  unfairness  of  the  plea,  the 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          271 

movements  are  in  reality  all  parts  of  one  move 
ment.  There  is  a  perfect  chain,  —  see  it,  or 
see  it  not,  —  of  reforms  emerging  from  the  sur 
rounding  darkness,  each  cherishing  some  part 
of  the  general  idea,  and  all  must  be  seen  in  order 
to  do  justice  to  any  one.  Seen  in  this  their 
natural  connection,  they  are  sublime.1  The  con 
science  of  the  Age  demonstrates  itself  in  this 
effort  to  raise  the  life  of  man  by  putting  it  in 
harmony  with  his  idea  of  the  Beautiful  and  the 
Just.  The  history  of  reform  is  always  identical, 
it  is  the  comparison  of  the  idea  with  the  fact. 
Our  modes  of  living  are  not  agreeable  to  our 
imagination.  We  suspect  they  are  unworthy. 
We  arraign  our  daily  employments.  They  ap 
pear  to  us  unfit,  unworthy  of  the  faculties  we 
spend  on  them.  In  conversation  with  a  wise 
man,  we  find  ourselves  apologizing  for  our  em 
ployments  ;  we  speak  of  them  with  shame. 
Nature,  literature,  science,  childhood,  appear  to 
us  beautiful ;  but  not  our  own  daily  work,  not 
the  ripe  fruit  and  considered  labors  of  man. 
This  beauty  which  the  fancy  finds  in  everything 
else,  certainly  accuses  the  manner  of  life 'we  lead. 
Why  should  it  be  hateful  ?  Why  should  it 
contrast  thus  with  all  natural  beauty  ?  Why 
should  it  not  be  poetic,  and  invite  and  raise  us  ? 


272         LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

Is  there  a  necessity  that  the  works  of  man 
should  be  sordid  ?  Perhaps  not.  —  Out  of  this 
fair  Idea  in  the  mind  springs  the  effort  at  the 
Perfect.  It  is  the  interior  testimony  to  a  fairer 
possibility  of  life  and  manners  which  agitates 
society  every  day  with  the  offer  of  some  new 
amendment.  If  we  would  make  more  strict  in 
quiry  concerning  its  origin,  we  find  ourselves 
rapidly  approaching  the  inner  boundaries  of 
thought,  that  term  where  speech  becomes  si 
lence,  and  science  conscience.  For  the  origin 
of  all  reform  is  in  that  mysterious  fountain 
of  the  moral  sentiment  in  man,  which,  amidst 
the  natural,  ever  contains  the  supernatural  for 
men.  That  is  new  and  creative.  That  is  alive. 
That  alone  can  make  a  man  other  than  he  is. 
Here  or  nowhere  resides  unbounded  energy, 
unbounded  power. 

The  new  voices  in  the  wilderness  crying  "  Re 
pent,"  have  revived  a  hope,  which  had  well- 
nigh  perished  out  of  the  world,  that  the  thoughts 
of  the  mind  may  yet,  in  some  distant  age,  in 
some  happy  hour,  be  executed  by  the  hands. 
That  is  the  hope,  of  which  all  other  hopes  are 
parts.  For  some  ages,  these  ideas  have  been 
consigned  to  the  poet  and  musical  composer,  to 
the  prayers  and  the  sermons  of  churches ;  but 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          273 

the  thought  that  they  can  ever  have  any  foot 
ing  in  real  life,  seems  long  since  to  have  been 
exploded  by  all  judicious  persons.  Milton,  in 
his  best  tract,  describes  a  relation  between  re 
ligion  and  the  daily  occupations,  which  is  true 
until  this  time. 

"  A  wealthy  man,  addicted  to  his  pleasure 
and  to  his  profits,  finds  religion  to  be  a  traffic 
so  entangled,  and  of  so  many  piddling  accounts, 
that  of  all  mysteries  he  cannot  skill  to  keep  a 
stock  going  upon  that  trade.  What  should 
he  do  ?  Fain  he  would  have  the  name  to  be 
religious ;  fain  he  would  bear  up  with  his  neigh 
bors  in  that.  What  does  he  therefore,  but  re 
solve  to  give  over  toiling,  and  to  find  himself 
out  some  factor,  to  whose  care  and  credit  he 
may  commit  the  whole  managing  of  his  religious 
affairs  ;  some  divine  of  note  and  estimation  that 
must  be.  To  him  he  adheres,  resigns  the  whole 
warehouse  of  his  religion,  with  all  the  locks  and 
keys,  into  his  custody ;  and  indeed  makes  the 
very  person  of  that  man  his  religion  ;  esteems 
his  associating  with  him  a  sufficient  evidence  and 
commendatory  of  his  own  piety.  So  that  a  man 
may  say  his  religion  is  now  no  more  within  him 
self,  but  is  become  a  dividual  moveable,  and 
goes  and  comes  near  him,  according  as  that  good 


274          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

man  frequents  the  house.  He  entertains  him, 
gives  him  gifts,  feasts  him,  lodges  him;  his  re 
ligion  comes  home  at  night,  prays,  is  liberally 
supped,  and  sumptuously  laid  to  sleep  ;  rises,  is 
saluted,  and  after  the  malmsey,  or  some  well 
spiced  bruage,  and  better  breakfasted  than  he 
whose  morning  appetite  would  have  gladly  fed 
on  green  figs  between  Bethany  and  Jerusalem, 
his  religion  walks  abroad  at  eight,  and  leaves 
his  kind  entertainer  in  the  shop,  trading  all  day 
without  his  religion."  x 

This  picture  would  serve  for  our  times.  Re 
ligion  was  not  invited  to  eat  or  drink  or  sleep 
with  us,  or  to  make  or  divide  an  estate,  but 
was  a  holiday  guest.  Such  omissions  judge 
the  church ;  as  the  compromise  made  with  the 
slaveholder,  not  much  noticed  at  first,  every  day 
appears  more  flagrant  mischief  to  the  Ameri 
can  constitution.  But  now  the  purists  are  look 
ing  into  all  these  matters.  The  more  intelligent 
are  growing  uneasy  on  the  subject  of  Marriage. 
They  wish  to  see  the  character  represented  also 
in  that  covenant.  There  shall  be  nothing  brutal 
in  it,  but  it  shall  honor  the  man  and  the  wo 
man,  as  much  as  the  most  diffusive  and  univer 
sal  action.  Grimly  the  same  spirit  looks  into 
the  law  of  Property,  and  accuses  men  of  driving 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          275 

a  trade  in  the  great  boundless  providence  which 
had  given  the  air,  the  water,  and  the  land  to 
men,  to  use  and  not  to  fence  in  and  monopo 
lize.  It  casts  its  eye  on  Trade,  and  Day  Labor, 
and  so  it  goes  up  and  down,  paving  the  earth 
with  eyes,  destroying  privacy  and  making  thor 
ough-lights.  Is  all  this  for  nothing  ?  Do  you 
suppose  that  the  reforms  which  are  preparing 
will  be  as  superficial  as  those  we  know  ? 

By  the  books  it  reads  and  translates,  judge 
what  books  it  will  presently  print.  A  great  deal 
of  the  profoundest  thinking  of  antiquity,  which 
had  become  as  good  as  obsolete  for  us,  is  now 
re-appearing  in  extracts  and  allusions,  and  in 
twenty  years  will  get  all  printed  anew.  See  how 
daring  is  the  reading,  the  speculation,  the  ex 
perimenting  of  the  time.  If  now  some  genius 
shall  arise  who  could  unite  these  scattered  rays ! 
And  always  such  a  genius  does  embody  the 
ideas  of  each  time.  Here  is  great  variety  and 
richness  of  mysticism,  each  part  of  which  now 
only  disgusts  whilst  it  forms  the  sole  thought 
of  some  poor  Perfectionist  or  "  Comer  out,"  yet 
when  it  shall  be  taken  up  as  the  garniture  of 
some  profound  and  all-reconciling  thinker,  will 
appear  the  rich  and  appropriate  decoration  of 
his  robes. 


276          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

These  reforms  are  our  contemporaries  ;  they 
are  ourselves  ;  our  own  light,  and  sight,  and 
conscience  ;  they  only  name  the  relation  which 
subsists  between  us  and  the  vicious  institutions 
which  they  go  to  rectify.  They  are  the  simplest 
statements  of  man  in  these  matters ;  the  plain 
right  and  wrong.  I  cannot  choose  but  allow 
and  honor  them.  The  impulse  is  good,  and 
the  theory  ;  the  practice  is  less  beautiful.  The 
Reformers  affirm  the  inward  life,  but  they  do 
not  trust  it,  but  use  outward  and  vulgar  means. 
They  do  not  rely  on  precisely  that  strength 
which  wins  me  to  their  cause  ;  not  on  love,  not 
on  a  principle,  but  on  men,  on  multitudes,  on 
circumstances,  on  money,  on  party ;  that  is,  on 
fear,  on  wrath,  and  pride.  The  love  which  lifted 
men  to  the  sight  of  these  better  ends  was  the 
true  and  best  distinction  of  this  time,  the  dis 
position  to  trust  a  principle  more  than  a  material 
force.  I  think  that  the  soul  of  reform  ;  the  con 
viction  that  not  sensualism,  not  slavery,  not  war, 
not  imprisonment,  not  even  government,  are 
needed,  —  but  in  lieu  of  them  all,  reliance  on 
the  sentiment  of  man,  which  will  work  best  the 
more  it  is  trusted;  not  reliance  on  numbers,  but, 
contrariwise,  distrust  of  numbers  and  the  feeling 
that  then  are  we  strongest  when  most  private 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          277 

and  alone.  The  young  men  who  have  been 
vexing  society  for  these  last  years  with  regener 
ative  methods  seem  to  have  made  this  mistake; 
they  all  exaggerated  some  special  means,  and  all 
failed  to  see  that  the  Reform  of  Reforms  must 
be  accomplished  without  means. 

The  Reforms  have  their  high  origin  in  an 
ideal  justice,  but  they  do  not  retain  the  purity 
of  an  idea.  They  are  quickly  organized  in  some 
low,  inadequate  form,  and  present  no  more 
poetic  image  to  the  mind  than  the  evil  tradi 
tion  which  they  reprobated.  They  mix  the  fire 
of  the  moral  sentiment  with  personal  and  party 
heats,  with  measureless  exaggerations,  and  the 
blindness  that  prefers  some  darling  measure  to 
justice  and  truth.  Those  who  are  urging  with 
most  ardor  what  are  called  the  greatest  benefits 
of  mankind,  are  narrow,  self-pleasing,  conceited 
men,  and  affect  us  as  the  insane  do.  They  bite 
us,  and  we  run  mad  also.1  I  think  the  work  of 
the  reformer  as  innocent  as  other  work  that  is 
done  around  him  ;  but  when  I  have  seen  it  near, 
I  do  not  like  it  better.  It  is  done  in  the  same 
way,  it  is  done  profanely,  not  piously ;  by  man 
agement,  by  tactics  and  clamor.  It  is  a  buzz  in 
the  ear.  I  cannot  feel  any  pleasure  in  sacrifices 
which  display  to  me  such  partiality  of  character. 


278          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

We  do  not  want  actions,  but  men  ;  not  a  chemi 
cal  drop  of  water,  but  rain  ;  the  spirit  that  sheds 
and  showers  actions,  countless,  endless  actions. 
You  have  on  some  occasion  played  a  bold  part. 
You  have  set  your  heart  and  face  against  soci 
ety  when  you  thought  it  wrong,  and  returned  it 
frown  for  frown.  Excellent :  now  can  you  afford 
to  forget  it,  reckoning  all  your  action  no  more 
than  the  passing  of  your  hand  through  the  air, 
or  a  little  breath  of  your  mouth  ?  The  world 
leaves  no  track  in  space,  and  the  greatest  action 
of  man  no  mark  in  the  vast  idea.1  To  the  youth 
diffident  of  his  ability  and  full  of  compunction 
at  his  unprofitable  existence,  the  temptation  is 
always  great  to  lend  himself  to  public  move 
ments,  and  as  one  of  a  party  accomplish  what 
he  cannot  hope  to  effect  alone.  But  he  must 
resist  the  degradation  of  a  man  to  a  measure. 
I  must  get  with  truth,  though  I  should  never 
come  to  act,  as  you  call  it,  with  effect.  I  must 
consent  to  inaction.  A  patience  which  is  grand  ; 
a  brave  and  cold  neglect  of  the  offices  which 
prudence  exacts,  so  it  be  done  in  a  deep  upper 
piety ;  a  consent  to  solitude  and  inaction  which 
proceeds  out  of  an  unwillingness  to  violate 
character,  is  the  century  which  makes  the  gem. 
Whilst  therefore  I  desire  to  express  the  respect 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          279 

and  joy  I  feel  before  this  sublime  connection 
of  reforms  now  in  their  infancy  around  us,  I 
urge  the  more  earnestly  the  paramount  duties 
of  self-reliance.  I  cannot  find  language  of  suffi 
cient  energy  to  convey  my  sense  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  private  integrity.  All  men,  all  things, 
the  state,  the  church,  yea,  the  friends  of  the  heart 
are  phantasms  and  unreal  beside  the  sanctuary 
of  the  heart.  With  so  much  awe,  with  so  much 
fear,  let  it  be  respected. 

The  great  majority  of  men,  unable  to  judge 
of  any  principle  until  its  light  falls  on  a  fact,  are 
not  aware  of  the  evil  that  is  around  them  until 
they  see  it  in  some  gross  form,  as  in  a  class  of 
intemperate  men,  or  slaveholders,  or  soldiers, 
or  fraudulent  persons.  Then  they  are  greatly 
moved ;  and  magnifying  the  importance  of  that 
wrong,  they  fancy  that  if  that  abuse  were  re 
dressed  all  would  go  well,  and  they  fill  the  land 
with  clamor  to  correct  it.  Hence  the  mission 
ary,  and  other  religious  efforts.  If  every  island 
and  every  house  had  a  Bible,  if  every  child 
was  brought  into  the  Sunday  School,  would  the 
wounds  of  the  world  heal,  and  man  be  upright  ? 

But  the  man  of  ideas,  accounting  the  circum 
stance  nothing,  judges  of  the  commonwealth 
from  the  state  of  his  own  mind.  c  If,'  he  says3 


28o          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

c  I  am  selfish,  then  is  there  slavery,  or  the  effort 
to  establish  it,  wherever  I  go.  But  if  1  am  just, 
then  is  there  no  slavery,  let  the  laws  say  what 
they  will.  For  if  I  treat  all  men  as  gods,  how 
to  me  can  there  be  any  such  thing  as  a  slave?  * 
But  how  frivolous  is  your  war  against  circum 
stances.  This  denouncing  philanthropist  is  him 
self  a  slaveholder  in  every  word  and  look.  Does 
he  free  me?  Does  he  cheer  me?  He  is  the 
state  of  Georgia,  or  Alabama,  with  their  san 
guinary  slave-laws,  walking  here  on  our  north 
eastern  shores.  We  are  all  thankful  he  has  no 
more  political  power,  as  we  are  fond  of  liberty 
ourselves.  I  am  afraid  our  virtue  is  a  little  geo 
graphical.  I  am  not  mortified  by  our  vice  ;  that 
is  obduracy;  it  colors  and  palters,  it  curses  and 
swears,  and  I  can  see  to  the  end  of  it ;  but  I 
own  our  virtue  makes  me  ashamed  ;  so  sour  and 
narrow,  so  thin  and  blind,  virtue  so  vice-like.1 
Then  again,  how  trivial  seem  the  contests  of  the 
abolitionist,  whilst  he  aims  merely  at  the  circum 
stance  of  the  slave.  Give  the  slave  the  least 
elevation  of  religious  sentiment,  and  he  is  no 
slave ;  you  are  the  slave ;  he  not  only  in  his 
humility  feels  his  superiority,  feels  that  much 
deplored  condition  of  his  to  be  a  fading  trifle, 
but  he  makes  you  feel  it  too.  He  is  the  mas- 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          281 

ter.  The  exaggeration  which  our  young  people 
make  of  his  wrongs,  characterizes  themselves. 
What  are  no  trifles  to  them,  they  naturally  think 
are  no  trifles  to  Pompey. 

We  say  then  that  the  reforming  movement  is 
sacred  in  its  origin  ;  in  its  management  and  de 
tails,  timid  and  profane.  These  benefactors  hope 
to  raise  man  by  improving  his  circumstances : 
by  combination  of  that  which  is  dead  they  hope 
to  make  something  alive.  In  vain.  By  new  in 
fusions  alone  of  the  spirit  by  which  he  is  made 
and  directed,  can  he  be  re-made  and  reinforced. 
The  sad  Pestalozzi,  who  shared  with  all  ardent 
spirits  the  hope  of  Europe  on  the  outbreak  of 
the  French  Revolution,  after  witnessing  its  se 
quel,  recorded  his  conviction  that  "  the  amelio 
ration  of  outward  circumstances  will  be  the  effect 
but  can  never  be  the  means  of  mental  and  moral 
improvement."  Quitting  now  the  class  of  ac 
tors,  let  us  turn  to  see  how  it  stands  with  the 
other  class  of  which  we  spoke,  namely,  the  stu 
dents. 

A  new  disease  has  fallen  on  the  life  of  man. 
Every  Age,  like  every  human  body,  has  its  own 
distemper.  Other  times  have  had  war,  or  fam 
ine,  or  a  barbarism,  domestic  or  bordering,  as 
their  antagonism.  Our  forefathers  walked  in  the 


282          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

world  and  went  to  their  graves  tormented  with 
the  fear  of  Sin  and  the  terror  of  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  These  terrors  have  lost  their  force, 
and  our  torment  is  Unbelief,  the  Uncertainty 
as  to  what  we  ought  to  do ;  the  distrust  of  the 
value  of  what  we  do,  and  the  distrust  that  the 
Necessity  (which  we  all  at  last  believe  in)  is  fair 
and  beneficent.  Our  Religion  assumes  the  neg 
ative  form  of  rejection.  Out  of  love  of  the  true, 
we  repudiate  the  false ;  and  the  Religion  is  an 
abolishing  criticism.  A  great  perplexity  hangs 
like  a  cloud  on  the  brow  of  all  cultivated  per 
sons,  a  certain  imbecility  in  the  best  spirits, 
which  distinguishes  the  period.  We  do  not  find 
the  same  trait  in  the  Arabian,  in  the  Hebrew,  in 
Greek,  Roman,  Norman,  English  periods ;  no, 
but  in  other  men  a  natural  firmness.  The  men 
did  not  see  beyond  the  need  of  the  hour.  They 
planted  their  foot  strong,  and  doubted  nothing. 
We  mistrust  every  step  we  take.  We  find  it  the 
worst  thing  about  time  that  we  know  not  what 
to  do  with  it.1  We  are  so  sharp-sighted  that  we 
can  neither  work  nor  think,  neither  read  Plato 
nor  not  read  him. 

Then  there  is  what  is  called  a  too  intellectual 
tendency.  Can  there  be  too  much  intellect  ? 
We  have  never  met  with  any  such  excess.  But 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          283 

the  criticism  which  is  levelled  at  the  laws  and 
manners,  ends  in  thought,  without  causing  a 
new  method  of  life.  The  genius  of  the  day  does 
not  incline  to  a  deed,  but  to  a  beholding.  It  is 
not  that  men  do  not  wish  to  act ;  they  pine  to 
be  employed,  but  are  paralyzed  by  the  uncer 
tainty  what  they  should  do.  The  inadequacy  of 
the  work  to  the  faculties  is  the  painful  percep 
tion  which  keeps  them  still.  This  happens  to 
the  best.  Then,  talents  bring  their  usual  temp 
tations,  and  the  current  literature  and  poetry 
with  perverse  ingenuity  draw  us  away  from  life 
to  solitude  and  meditation.  This  could  well  be 
borne,  if  it  were  great  and  involuntary  ;  if  the 
men  were  ravished  by  their  thought,  and  hur 
ried  into  ascetic  extravagances.  Society  could 
then  manage  to  release  their  shoulder  from  its 
wheel  and  grant  them  for  a  time  this  privilege  of 
sabbath.  But  they  are  not  so.  Thinking,  which 
was  a  rage,  is  become  an  art.  The  thinker  gives 
me  results,  and  never  invites  me  to  be  present 
with  him  at  his  invocation  of  truth,  and  to  enjoy 
with  him  its  proceeding  into  his  mind. 

So  little  action  amidst  such  audacious  and  yet 
sincere  profession,  that  we  begin  to  doubt  if 
that  great  revolution  in  the  art  of  war,  which 
has  made  it  a  game  of  posts  instead  of  a  game 


284          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

of  battles,  has  not  operated  on  Reform  ;  whether 
this  be  not  also  a  war  of  posts,  a  paper  block 
ade,  in  which  each  party  is  to  display  the  ut 
most  resources  of  his  spirit  and  belief,  and  no 
conflict  occur,  but  the  world  shall  take  that 
course  which  the  demonstration  of  the  truth 
shall  indicate. 

But  we  must  pay  for  being  too  intellectual, 
as  they  call  it.  People  are  not  as  light-hearted 
for  it.  I  think  men  never  loved  life  less.  I 
question  if  care  and  doubt  ever  wrote  their 
names  so  legibly  on  the  faces  of  any  popula 
tion.  This  Ennui,  for  which  we  Saxons  had  no 
name,  this  word  of  France  has  got  a  terrific  sig 
nificance.  It  shortens  life,  and  bereaves  the  day 
of  its  light.  Old  age  begins  in  the  nursery,  and 
before  the  young  American  is  put  into  jacket 
and  trowsers,  he  says,  c  I  want  something  which 
I  never  saw  before ; '  and  c  I  wish  I  was  not  I.' 
I  have  seen  the  same  gloom  on  the  brow  even 
of  those  adventurers  from  the  intellectual  class 
who  had  dived  deepest  and  with  most  success 
into  active  life.  I  have  seen  the  authentic  sign 
of  anxiety  and  perplexity  on,  the  greatest  fore 
head  of  the  State.  The  canker  worms  have 
crawled  to  the  topmost  bough  of  the  wild  elm, 
and  swing  down  from  that.  Is  there  less  oxy- 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          285 

gen  in  the  atmosphere  ?  What  has  checked  in 
this  age  the  animal  spirits  which  gave  to  our 
forefathers  their  bounding  pulse  ? 

But  have  a  little  patience  with  this  melan 
choly  humor.  Their  unbelief  arises  out  of  a 
greater  Belief;  their  inaction  out  of  a  scorn  of 
inadequate  action.  By  the  side  of  these  men, 
the  hot  agitators  have  a  certain  cheap  and  ridicu 
lous  air ;  they  even  look  smaller  than  the  others. 
Of  the  two,  I  own  I  like  the  speculators  best. 
They  have  some  piety  which  looks  with  faith 
to  a  fair  Future,  unprofaned  by  rash  and  un 
equal  attempts  to  realize  it.  And  truly  we  shall 
find  much  to  console  us,  when  we  consider  the 
cause  of  their  uneasiness.  It  is  the  love  of  great 
ness,  it  is  the  need  of  harmony,  the  contrast  of 
the  dwarfish  Actual  with  the  exorbitant  Idea. 
No  man  can  compare  the  ideas  and  aspirations 
of  the  innovators  of  the  present  day  with  those 
of  former  periods,  without  feeling  how  great 
and  high  this  criticism  is.  The  revolutions  that 
impend  over  society  are  not  now  from  ambition 
and  rapacity,  from  impatience  of  one  or  another 
form  of  government,  but  from  new  modes  of 
thinking,  which  shall  recompose  society  after 
a  new  order,  which  shall  animate  labor  by  love 
and  science,  which  shall  destroy  the  value  of 


286          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

many  kinds  of  property  and  replace  all  pro 
perty  within  the  dominion  of  reason  and  equity. 
There  was  never  so  great  a  thought  laboring  in 
the  breasts  of  men  as  now.  It  almost  seems  as 
if  what  was  aforetime  spoken  fabulously  and 
hieroglyphically,  was  now  spoken  plainly,  the 
doctrine,  namely,  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Crea 
tor  in  man.  The  spiritualist  wishes  this  only, 
that  the  spiritual  principle  should  be  suffered 
to  demonstrate  itself  to  the  end,  in  all  possible 
applications  to  the  state  of  man,  without  the 
admission  of  anything  unspiritual,  that  is,  any 
thing  positive,  dogmatic,  or  personal.  The  ex 
cellence  of  this  class  consists  in  this,  that  they 
have  believed  ;  that,  affirming  the  need  of  new 
and  higher  modes  of  living  and  action,  they 
have  abstained  from  the  recommendation  of  low 
methods.  Their  fault  is  that  they  have  stopped 
at  the  intellectual  perception  ;  that  their  will  is 
not  yet  inspired  from  the  Fountain  of  Love. 
But  whose  fault  is  this  ?  and  what  a  fault,  and 
to  what  inquiry  does  it  lead  !  We  have  come 
to  that  which  is  the  spring  of  all  power,  of 
beauty  and  virtue,  of  art  and  poetry  ;  and  who 
shall  tell  us  according  to  what  law  its  inspira 
tions  and  its  informations  are  given  or  with- 
holden  ? 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          287 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  guilty  of  the  narrowness 
and  pedantry  of  inferring  the  tendency  and  gen 
ius  of  the  Age  from  a  few  and  insufficient  facts 
or  persons.  Every  age  has  a  thousand  sides  and 
signs  and  tendencies,  and  it  is  only  when  sur 
veyed  from  inferior  points  of  view  that  great 
varieties  of  character  appear.  Our  time  too  is 
full  of  activity  and  performance.  Is  there  not 
something  comprehensive  in  the  grasp  of  a  soci 
ety  which  to  great  mechanical  invention  and  the 
best  institutions  of  property  adds  the  most  dar 
ing  theories ;  which  explores  the  subtlest  and 
most  universal  problems  ?  At  the  manifest  risk 
of  repeating  what  every  other  Age  has  thought 
of  itself,  we  might  say  we  think  the  Genius  of 
this  Age  more  philosophical  than  any  other  has 
been,  righter  in  its  aims,  truer,  with  less  fear, 
less  fable,  less  mixture  of  any  sort. 

But  turn  it  how  we  will,  as  we  ponder  this 
meaning  of  the  times,  every  new  thought  drives 
us  to  the  deep  fact  that  the  Time  is  the  child 
of  the  Eternity.  The  main  interest  which  any 
aspects  of  the  Times  can  have  for  us,  is  the 
great  spirit  which  gazes  through  them,  the  light 
which  they  can  shed  on  the  wonderful  ques 
tions,  What  we  are  ?  and  Whither  we  tend  ? 
We  do  not  wish  to  be  deceived.  Here  we  drift, 


288          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

like  white  sail  across  the  wild  ocean,  now  bright 
on  the  wave,  now  darkling  in  the  trough  of 
the  sea  ;  —  but  from  what  port  did  we  sail  ? 
Who  knows  ?  Or  to  what  port  are  we  bound  ? 
Who  knows  !  There  is  no  one  to  tell  us  but 
such  poor  weather-tossed  mariners  as  ourselves, 
whom  we  speak  as  we  pass,  or  who  have  hoisted 
some  signal,  or  floated  to  us  some  letter  in  a 
bottle  from  far.  But  what  know  they  more 
than  we  ?  They  also  found  themselves  on  this 
wondrous  sea.  No  ;  from  the  older  sailors,  no 
thing.  Over  all  their  speaking-trumpets,  the 
gray  sea  and  the  loud  winds  answer,  Not  in  us  ; 
not  in  Time.1  Where  then  but  in  Ourselves, 
where  but  in  that  Thought  through  which  we 
communicate  with  absolute  nature,  and  are  made 
aware  that  whilst  we  shed  the  dust  of  which  we 
are  built,  grain  by  grain,  till  it  is  all  gone,  the 
law  which  clothes  us  with  humanity  remains 
anew  ?  where  but  in  the  intuitions  which  are 
vouchsafed  us  from  within,  shall  we  learn  the 
Truth  ?  Faithless,  faithless,  we  fancy  that  with 
the  dust  we  depart  and  are  not,  and  do  not 
know  that  the  law  and  the  perception  of  the  law 
are  at  last  one;  that  only  as  much  as  the  law 
enters  us,  becomes  us,  we  are  living  men, —  im 
mortal  with  the  immortality  of  this  law.  Under- 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          289 

neath  all  these  appearances  lies  that  which  is, 
that  which  lives,  that  which  causes.  This  ever 
renewing  generation  of  appearances  rests  on  a 
reality,  and  a  reality  that  is  alive.1 

To  a  true  scholar  the  attraction  of  the  aspects 
of  nature,  the  departments  of  life,  and  the  pas 
sages  of  his  experience,  is  simply  the  informa 
tion  they  yield  him  of  this  supreme  nature  which 
lurks  within  all.  That  reality,  that  causing  force 
is  moral.  The  Moral  Sentiment  is  but  its  other 
name.  It  makes  by  its  presence  or  absence  right 
and  wrong,  beauty  and  ugliness,  genius  or  de 
pravation.  As  the  granite  comes  to  the  surface 
and  towers  into  the  highest  mountains,  and,  if 
we  dig  down,  we  find  it  below  the  superficial 
strata,  so  in  all  the  details  of  our  domestic  or 
civil  life  is  hidden  the  elemental  reality,  which 
ever  and  anon  comes  to  the  surface,  and  forms 
the  grand  men,  who  are  the  leaders  and  ex 
amples,  rather  than  the  companions  of  the  race. 
The  granite  is  curiously  concealed  under  a  thou 
sand  formations  and  surfaces,  under  fertile  soils, 
and  grasses,  and  flowers,  under  well  -  manured, 
arable  fields,  and  large  towns  and  cities,  but  it 
makes  the  foundation  of  these,  and  is  always  in 
dicating  its  presence  by  slight  but  sure  signs. 
So  is  it  with  the  Life  of  our  life  ;  so  close  does 


290          LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES 

that  also  hide.  I  read  it  in  glad  and  in  weeping 
eyes  ;  I  read  it  in  the  pride  and  in  the  humility 
of  people  ;  it  is  recognized  in  every  bargain  and 
in  every  complaisance,  in  every  criticism,  and  in 
all  praise ;  it  is  voted  for  at  elections  ;  it  wins 
the  cause  with  juries  ;  it  rides  the  stormy  elo 
quence  of  the  senate,  sole  victor  ;  histories  are 
written  of  it,  holidays  decreed  to  it ;  statues, 
tombs,  churches,  built  to  its  honor  ;  yet  men 
seem  to  fear  and  to  shun  it  when  it  comes  barely 
to  view  in  our  immediate  neighborhood. 

For  that  reality  let  us  stand ;  that  let  us  serve, 
and  for  that  speak.  Only  as  far  as  that  shines 
through  them  are  these  times  or  any  times 
worth  consideration.  I  wish  to  speak  of  the  pol 
itics,  education,  business,  and  religion  around  us 
without  ceremony  or  false  deference.  You  will 
absolve  me  from  the  charge  of  flippancy,  or  ma 
lignity,  or  the  desire  to  say  smart  things  at  the 
expense  of  whomsoever,  when  you  see  that  real 
ity  is  all  we  prize,  and  that  we  are  bound  on  our 
entrance  into  nature  to  speak  for  that.  Let  it 
not  be  recorded  in  our  own  memories  that  in 
this  moment  of  the  Eternity,  when  we  who  were 
named  by  our  names  flitted  across  the  light,  we 
were  afraid  of  any  fact,  or  disgraced  the  fair 
Day  by  a  pusillanimous  preference  of  our  bread 


LECTURE  ON  THE  TIMES          291 

to  our  freedom.  What  is  the  scholar,  what  is 
the  man  for,  but  for  hospitality  to  every^new 
thought  of  his  time  ?  Have  you  leisure,  power, 
property,  friends  ?  You  shall  be  the  asylum  and 
patron  of  every  new  thought,  every  unproven 
opinion,  every  untried  project  which  proceeds 
out  of  good  will  and  honest  seeking.1  All  the 
newspapers,  all  the  tongues  of  to-day  will  of 
course  at  first  defame  what  is  noble ;  but  you 
who  hold  not  of  to-day,  not  of  the  times,  but 
of  the  Everlasting,  are  to  stand  for  it :  and 
the  highest  compliment  man  ever  receives  from 
heaven  is  the  sending  to  him  its  disguised  and 
discredited  angels. 


THE   CONSERVATIVE 

A    LECTURE    DELIVERED    AT   THE    MASONIC    TEMPLE, 
BOSTON,    DECEMBER   9,  1841 


THE    CONSERVATIVE 

^  I  ^HE  two  parties  which  divide  the  state,  the 
JL  party  of  Conservatism  and  that  of  Inno 
vation,  are  very  old,  and  have  disputed  the  pos 
session  of  the  world  ever  since  it  was  made. 
This  quarrel  is  the  subject  of  civil  history.  The 
conservative  party  established  the  reverend  hie 
rarchies  and  monarchies  of  the  most  ancient 
world.  The  battle  of  patrician  and  plebeian,  of 
parent  state  and  colony^  of  old  usage  and  accom 
modation  to  new  facts,  of  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
reappears  in  all  countries  and  times.  The  war 
rages  not  only  in  battle-fields,  in  national  coun 
cils  and  ecclesiastical  synods,  but  agitates  every 
man's  bosom  with  opposing  advantages  every 
hour.  On  rolls  the  old  world  meantime,  and 
now  one,  now  the  other  gets  the  day,  and  still 
the  fight  renews  itself  as  if  for  the  first  time, 
under  new  names  and  hot  personalities. 

Such  an  irreconcilable  antagonism  of  course 
must  have  a  correspondent  depth  of  seat  in  the 
human  constitution.  It  is  the  opposition  of 
Past  and  Future,  of  Memory  and  Hope,  of  the 
Understanding  and  the  Reason.  It  is  the  pri- 


296  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

mal  antagonism,  the  appearance  in  trifles  of  the 
two  poles  of  nature.1 

There  is  a  fragment  of  old  fable  which  seems 
somehow  to  have  been  dropped  from  the  cur 
rent  mythologies,  which  may  deserve  attention, 
as  it  appears  to  relate  to  this  subject. 

Saturn  grew  weary  of  sitting  alone,  or  with 
none  but  the  great  Uranus  or  Heaven  behold 
ing  him,  and  he  created  an  oyster.  Then  he 
would  act  again,  but  he  made  nothing  more, 
but  went  on  creating  the  race  of  oysters.  Then 
Uranus  cried,  CA  new  work,  O  Saturn  !  the  old 
is  not  good  again/ 

Saturn  replied,  *  I  fear.  There  is  not  only 
the  alternative  of  making  and  not  making,  but 
also  of  unmaking.  Seest  thou  the  great  sea, 
how  it  ebbs  and  flows  ?  so  is  it  with  me ;  my 
power  ebbs ;  and  if  I  put  forth  my  hands,  I 
shall  not  do,  but  undo.  Therefore  I  do  what 
I  have  done ;  I  hold  what  I  have  got ;  and  so  I 
resist  Night  and  Chaos.' 

c  O  Saturn,'  replied  Uranus,  c  thou  canst  not 
hold  thine  own  but  by  making  more.  Thy  oys 
ters  are  barnacles  and  cockles,  and  with  the  next 
flowing  of  the  tide  they  will  be  pebbles  and  sea- 
foam.' 

c  I  see,'  rejoins  Saturn,  *  thou  art  in  league 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  297 

with  Night,  thou  art  become  an  evil  eye;  thou 
spakest  from  love ;  now  thy  words  smite  me 
with  hatred.  I  appeal  to  Fate,  must  there  not 
be  rest  ? ' — ' I  appeal  to  Fate  also/  said  Ura 
nus,  c  must  there  not  be  motion  ? ' —  But  Saturn 
was  silent,  and  went  on  making  oysters  for  a 
thousand  years. 

After  that,  the  word  of  Uranus  came  into 
his  mind  like  a  ray  of  the  sun,  and  he  made 
Jupiter ;  and  then  he  feared  again ;  and  nature 
froze,  the  things  that  were  made  went  back 
ward,  and  to  save  the  world,  Jupiter  slew  his 
father  Saturn. 

This  may  stand  for  the  earliest  account  of  a 
conversation  on  politics  between  a  Conserva 
tive  and  a  Radical  which  has  come  down  to  us. 
It  is  ever  thus.  It  is  the  counteraction  of  the  cen 
tripetal  and  the  centrifugal  forces.  Innovation  is 
the  salient  energy ;  Conservatism  the  pause  on 
the  last  movement.  c  That  which  is  was  made  by 
God,'  saith  Conservatism.  c  He  is  leaving  that, 
he  is  entering  this  other,'  rejoins  Innovation.1 

There  is  always  a  certain  meanness  in  the 
argument  of  conservatism,  joined  with  a  cer 
tain  superiority  in  its  fact.  It  affirms  because 
it  holds.  Its  fingers  clutch  the  fact,  and  it  will 
not  open  its  eyes  to  see  a  better  fact.  The  cas- 


298  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

tie  which  conservatism  is  set  to  defend  is  the 
actual  state  of  things,  good  and  bad.  The  pro 
ject  of  innovation  is  the  best  possible  state  of 
things.  Of  course  conservatism  always  has  the 
worst  of  the  argument,  is  always  apologizing, 
pleading  a  necessity,  pleading  that  to  change 
would  be  to  deteriorate :  it  must  saddle  itself 
with  the  mountainous  load  of  the  violence  and 
vice  of  society,  must  deny  the  possibility  of 
good,  deny  ideas,  and  suspect  and  stone  the 
prophet ;  whilst  innovation  is  always  in  the 
right,  triumphant,  attacking,  and  sure  of  final 
success.  Conservatism  stands  on  man's  con 
fessed  limitations,  reform  on  his  indisputable 
infinitude  ;  conservatism  on  circumstance,  lib 
eralism  on  power  ;  one  goes  to  make  an  adroit 
member  of  the  social  frame,  the  other  to  post 
pone  all  things  to  the  man  himself;  conserva 
tism  is  debonair  and  social,  reform  is  individual 
and  imperious.  We  are  reformers  in  spring  and 
summer,  in  auturrm  and  winter  we  stand  by  the 
old ;  reformers  in  the  morning,  conservers  at 
night.  Reform  is  affirmative,  conservatism  neg 
ative  ;  conservatism  goes  for  comfort,  reform 
for  truth.  Conservatism  is  more  candid  to  be 
hold  another's  worth  ;  reform  more  disposed  to 
maintain  and  increase  its  own.  Conservatism 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  299 

makes  no  poetry,  breathes  no  prayer,  has  no 
invention  ;  it  is  all  memory.  Reform  has  no 
gratitude,  no  prudence,  no  husbandry.  It  makes 
a  great  difference  to  your  figure  and  to  your 
thought  whether  your  foot  is  advancing  or  re 
ceding.  Conservatism  never  puts  the  foot  for 
ward  ;  in  the  hour  when  it  does  that,  it  is  not 
establishment,  but  reform.  Conservatism  tends 
to  universal  seeming  and  treachery,  believes  in 
a  negative  fate;  believes  that  men's  temper 
governs  them ;  that  for  me  it  avails  not  to  trust 
in  principles,  they  will  fail  me,  I  must  bend  a 
little ;  it  distrusts  nature ;  it  thinks  there  is  a 
general  law  without  a  particular  application,  — 
law  for  all  that  does  not  include  any  one.  Re 
form  in  its  antagonism  inclines  to  asinine  resist 
ance,  to  kick  with  hoofs  ;  it  runs  to  egotism 
and  bloated  self-conceit ;  it  runs  to  a  bodiless 
pretension,  to  unnatural  refining  and  elevation 
which  ends  in  hypocrisy  and  sensual  reaction. 

And  so,  whilst  we  do  not  go  beyond  general 
statements,  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  of  these 
two  metaphysical  antagonists,  that  each  is  a  good 
half,  but  an  impossible  whole.  Each  exposes 
the  abuses  of  the  other,  but  in  a  true  society,  in 
a  true  man,  both  must  combine.1  Nature  does 
not  give  the  crown  of  its  approbation,  namely 


300  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

beauty,  to  any  action  or  emblem  or  actor  but 
to  one  which  combines  both  these  elements ; 
not  to  the  rock  which  resists  the  waves  from  age 
to  age,  nor  to  the  wave  which  lashes  incessantly 
the  rock,  but  the  superior  beauty  is  with  the 
oak  which  stands  with  its  hundred  arms  against 
the  storms  of  a  century,  and  grows  every  year 
like  a  sapling ;  or  the  river  which  ever  flowing, 
yet  is  found  in  the  same  bed  from  age  to  age ; 
or,  greatest  of  all,  the  man  who  has  subsisted 
for  years  amid  the  changes  of  nature,  yet  has 
distanced  himself,  so  that  when  you  remember 
what  he  was,  and  see  what  he  is,  you  say,  What 
strides  !  what  a  disparity  is  here  ! 

Throughout  nature  the  past  combines  in 
every  creature  with  the  present.  Each  of  the 
convolutions  of  the  sea -shell,  each  node  and 
spine  marks  one  year  of  the  fish's  life;  what 
was  the  mouth  of  the  shell  for  one  season, 
with  the  addition  of  new  matter  by  the  growth 
of  the  animal,  becoming  an  ornamental  node. 
The  leaves  and  a  shell  of  soft  wood  are  all 
that  the  vegetation  of  this  summer  has  made ; 
but  the  solid  columnar  stem,  which  lifts  that 
bank  of  foliage  into  the  air,  to  draw  the  eye 
and  to  cool  us  with  its  shade,  is  the  gift  and 
legacy  of  dead  and  buried  years. 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  301 

In  nature,  each  of  these  elements  being  al 
ways  present,  each  theory  has  a  natural  support. 
As  we  take  our  stand  on  Necessity,  or  on  Eth 
ics,  shall  we  go  for  the  conservative,  or  for  the 
reformer.  If  we  read  the  world  historically,  we 
shall  say,  Of  all  the  ages,  the  present  hour  and 
circumstance  is  the  cumulative  result ;  this  is  the 
best  throw  of  the  dice  of  nature  that  has  yet 
been,  or  that  is  yet  possible.  If  we  see  it  from 
the  side  of  Will,  or  the  Moral  Sentiment,  we 
shall  accuse  the  Past  and  the  Present,  and  re 
quire  the  impossible  of  the  Future. 

But  although  this  bifold  fact  lies  thus  united 
in  real  nature,  and  so  united  that  no  man  can 
continue  to  exist  in  whom  both  these  elements 
do  not  work,  yet  men  are  not  philosophers,  but 
are  rather  very  foolish  children,  who,  by  reason 
of  their  partiality,  see  everything  in  the  most 
absurd  manner,  and  are  the  victims  at  all  times 
of  the  nearest  object.  There  is  even  no  philo 
sopher  who  is  a  philosopher  at  all  times.  Our 
experience,  our  perception  is  conditioned  by  the 
need  to  acquire  in  parts  and  in  succession,  that 
is,  with  every  truth  a  certain  falsehood.  As  this 
is  the  invariable  method  of  our  training,  we 
must  give  it  allowance,  and  suffer  men  to  learn 
as  they  have  done  for  six  millenniums,  a  word  at 


302  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

a  time  ;  to  pair  off  into  insane  parties,  and  learn 
the  amount  of  truth  each  knows  by  the  denial 
of  an  equal  amount  of  truth.  For  the  present, 
then,  to  come  at  what  sum  is  attainable  to  us,  we 
must  even  hear  the  parties  plead  as  parties. 

That  which  is  best  about  conservatism,  that 
which,  though  it  cannot  be  expressed  in  de 
tail,  inspires  reverence  in  all,  is  the  Inevitable, 
There  is  the  question  not  only  what  the  con 
servative  says  for  himself,  but,  why  must  he  say 
it  ?  What  insurmountable  fact  binds  him  to  that 
side?  Here  is  the  fact  which  men  call  Fate,  and 
fate  in  dread  degrees,  fate  behind  fate,  not  to  be 
disposed  of  by  the  consideration  that  the  Con 
science  commands  this  or  that,  but  necessitating 
the  question  whether  the  faculties  of  man  will 
play  him  true  in  resisting  the  facts  of  universal 
experience  ?  For  although  the  commands  of 
the  Conscience  are  essentially  absolute,  they  are 
historically  limitary.  Wisdom  does  not  seek  a 
literal  rectitude,  but  an  useful,  that  is  a  condi 
tioned  one,  such  a  one  as  the  faculties  of  man 
and  the  constitution  of  things  will  warrant.  The 
reformer,  the  partisan,  loses  himself  in  driving 
to  the  utmost  some  specialty  of  right  conduct, 
until  his  own  nature  and  all  nature  resist  him  ; 
but  Wisdom  attempts  nothing  enormous  and 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  303 

disproportioned  to  its  powers,  nothing  which  it 
cannot  perform  or  nearly  perform.  We  have  all 
a  certain  intellection  or  presentiment  of  reform 
existing  in  the  mind,  which  does  not  yet  descend 
into  the  character,  and  those  who  throw  them 
selves  blindly  on  this  lose  themselves.  What 
ever  they  attempt  in  that  direction,  fails,  and 
reacts  suicidally  on  the  actor  himself.  This  is 
the  penalty  of  having  transcended  nature.  For 
the  existing  world  is  not  a  dream,  and  cannot 
with  impunity  be  treated  as  a  dream ;  neither 
is  it  a  disease ;  but  it  is  the  ground  on  which 
you  stand,  it  is  the  mother  of  whom  you  were 
born.  Reform  converses  with  possibilities,  per 
chance  with  impossibilities ;  but  here  is  sacred 
fact.  This  also  was  true,  or  it  could  not  be  :  it 
had  life  in  it,  or  it  could  not  have  existed;  it 
has  life  in  it,  or  it  could  not  continue.  Your 
schemes  may  be  feasible,  or  may  not  be,  but 
this  has  the  endorsement  of  nature  and  a  long 
friendship  and  cohabitation  with  the  powers  of 
nature.  This  will  stand  until  a  better  cast  of  the 
dice  is  made.  The  contest  between  the  Future 
and  the  Past  is  one  between  Divinity  entering 
and  Divinity  departing.  You  are  welcome  to 
try  your  experiments,  and,  if  you  can,  to  dis 
place  the  actual  order  by  that  ideal  republic  you 


304  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

announce,  for  nothing  but  God  will  expel  God. 
But  plainly  the  burden  of  proof  must  lie  with 
the  projector.  We  hold  to  this,  until  you  can 
demonstrate  something  better. 

The  system  of  property  and  law  goes  back 
for  its  origin  to  barbarous  and  sacred  times  ;  it 
is  the  fruit  of  the  same  mysterious  cause  as  the 
mineral  or  animal  world.  There  is  a  natural 
sentiment  and  prepossession  in  favor  of  age,  of 
ancestors,  of  barbarous  and  aboriginal  usages, 
which  is  a  homage  to  the  element  of  neces 
sity  and  divinity  which  is  in  them.  The  respect 
for  the  old  names  of  places,  of  mountains  and 
streams,  is  universal.  The  Indian  and  barbarous 
name  can  never  be  supplanted  without  loss. 
The  ancients  tell  us  that  the  gods  loved  the 
Ethiopians  for  their  stable  customs ;  and  the 
Egyptians  and  Chaldeans,  whose  origin  could 
not  be  explored,  passed  among  the  junior  tribes 
of  Greece  and  Italy  for  sacred  nations.1 

Moreover,  so  deep  is  the  foundation  of  the 
existing  social  system,  that  it  leaves  no  one  out 
of  it.  We  may  be  partial,  but  Fate  is  not.  All 
men  have  their  root  in  it.  You  who  quarrel  with 
the  arrangements  of  society,  and  are  willing  to 
embroil  all,  and  risk  the  indisputable  good  that 
exists,  for  the  chance  of  better,  live,  move,  and 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  305 

have  your  being  in  this,  and  your  deeds  contra 
dict  your  words  every  day.  For  as  you  cannot 
jump  from  the  ground  without  using  the  resist 
ance  of  the  ground,  nor  put  out  the  boat  to 
sea  without  shoving  from  the  shore,  nor  attain 
liberty  without  rejecting  obligation,  so  you  are 
under  the  necessity  of  using  the  Actual  order 
of  things,  in  order  to  disuse  it ;  to  live  by  it, 
whilst  you  wish  to  take  away  its  life.  The  past 
has  baked  your  loaf,  and  in  the  strength  of  its 
bread  you  would  break  up  the  oven.  But  you 
are  betrayed  by  your  own  nature.  You  also  are 
conservatives.  However  men  please  to  style 
themselves,  I  see  no  other  than  a  conservative 
party.  You  are  not  only  identical  with  us  in 
your  needs,  but  also  in  your  methods  and  aims. 
You  quarrel  with  my  conservatism,  but  it  is  to 
build  up  one  of  your  own  ;  it  will  have  a  new 
beginning,  but  the  same  course  and  end,  the 
same  trials,  the  same  passions;  among  the  lov 
ers  of  the  new  I  observe  that  there  is  a  jealousy 
of  the  newest,  and  that  the  seceder  from  the 
seceder  is  as  damnable  as  the  pope  himself. 

On  these  and  the  like  grounds  of  general 
statement,  conservatism  plants  itself  without 
danger  of  being  displaced.  Especially  before 
this  personal  appeal,  the  innovator  must  confess 


306  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

his  weakness,  must  confess  that  no  man  is  to 
be  found  good  enough  to  be  entitled  to  stand 
champion  for  the  principle.  But  when  this  great 
tendency  comes  to  practical  encounters,  and  is 
challenged  by  young  men,  to  whom  it  is  no  ab 
straction,  but  a  fact  of  hunger,  distress,  and  ex 
clusion  from  opportunities,  it  must  needs  seem 
injurious.  The  youth,  of  course,  is  an  innovator 
by  the  fact  of  his  birth.  There  he  stands,  newly 
born  on  the  planet,  a  universal  beggar,  with  all 
the  reason  of  things,  one  would  say,  on  his  side. 
In  his  first  consideration  how  to  feed,  clothe, and 
warm  himself,  he  is  met  by  warnings  on  every 
hand  that  this  thing  and  that  thing  have  owners, 
and  he  must  go  elsewhere.  Then  he  says,  (  If 
I  am  born  in  the  earth,  where  is  my  part  ?  have 
the  goodness,  gentlemen  of  this  world,  to  show 
me  my  wood-lot,  where  I  may  fell  my  wood, 
my  field  where  to  plant  my  corn,  my  pleasant 
ground  where  to  build  my  cabin/ 

c  Touch  any  wood,  or  field,  or  house-lot,  on 
your  peril/  cry  all  the  gentlemen  of  this  world  ; 
c  but  you  may  come  and  work  in  ours,  for  us, 
and  we  will  give  you  a  piece  of  bread/ 

f  And  what  is  that  peril  ?  ' 

c  Knives  and  muskets,  if  we  meet  you  in  the 
act ;  imprisonment,  if  we  find  you  afterward.' 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  307 

c  And  by  what  authority,  kind  gentlemen  ? ' 

c  By  our  law.' 

(  And  your  law,  —  is  it  just  ? ' 

c  As  just  for  you  as  it  was  for  us.  We  wrought 
for  others  under  this  law,  and  got  our  lands  so.' 

c  I  repeat  the  question,  Is  your  law  just?' 

c  Not  quite  just,  but  necessary.  Moreover,  it 
is  juster  now  than  it  was  when  we  were  born  ; 
we  have  made  it  milder  and  more  equal/ 

f  I  will  none  of  your  law/  returns  the  youth  ; 
c  it  encumbers  me.  I  cannot  understand,  or  so 
much  as  spare  time  to  read  that  needless  library 
of  your  laws.  Nature  has  sufficiently  provided 
me  with  rewards  and  sharp  penalties,  to  bind  me 
not  to  transgress.  Like  the  Persian  noble  of  old, 
I  ask  "that  I  may  neither  command  nor  obey." 
I  do  not  wish  to  enter  into  your  complex  social 
system.  I  shall  serve  those  whom  I  can,  and 
they  who  can  will  serve  me.  I  shall  seek  those 
whom  I  love,  and  shun  those  whom  I  love  not, 
and  what  more  can  all  your  laws  render  me  ? ' 

With  equal  earnestness  and  good  faith,  replies 
to  this  plaintiff  an  upholder  of  the  establish 
ment,  a  man  of  many  virtues  : 

c  Your  opposition  is  feather-brained  and  over- 
fine.  Young  man,  I  have  no  skill  to  talk  with 
you,  but  look  at  me  ;  I  have  risen  earlv  and  sat 


3o8  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

late,  and  toiled  honestly  and  painfully  for  very 
many  years.  I  never  dreamed  about  methods ; 
I  laid  my  bones  to,  and  drudged  for  the  good 
I  possess  ;  it  was  not  got  by  fraud,  nor  by  luck, 
but  by  work,  and  you  must  show  me  a  warrant 
like  these  stubborn  facts  in  your  own  fidelity 
and  labor,  before  I  suffer  you,  on  the  faith  of  a 
few  fine  words,  to  ride  into  my  estate,  and  claim 
to  scatter  it  as  your  own.' 

c  Now  you  touch  the  heart  of  the  matter/  re 
plies  the  reformer.  c  To  that  fidelity  and  labor 
I  pay  homage.  I  am  unworthy  to  arraign  your 
manner  of  living,  until  I  too  have  been  tried. 
But  I  should  be  more  unworthy  if  I  did  not 
tell  you  why  I  cannot  walk  in  your  steps.  I 
find  this  vast  network,  which  you  call  property, 
extended  over  the  whole  planet.  I  cannot  oc 
cupy  the  bleakest  crag  of  the  White  Hills  or  the 
AHeghany  Range,  but  some  man  or  corporation 
steps  up  to  me  to  show  me  that  it  is  his.  Now, 
though  I  am  very  peaceable,  and  on  my  pri 
vate  account  could  well  enough  die,  since  it  ap 
pears  there  was  some  mistake  in  my  creation,  and 
that  I  have  been  missent  to  this  earth,  where  all 
the  seats  were  already  taken,  —  yet  I  feel  called 
upon  in  behalf  of  rational  nature,  which  I  repre 
sent,  to  declare  to  you  my  opinion  that  if  the 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  309 

Earth  is  yours  so  also  is  it  mine.  All  your  ag 
gregate  existences  are  less  to  me  a  fact  than  is  my 
own ;  as  I  am  born  to  the  Earth,  so  the  Earth 
is  given  to  me,  what  I  want  of  it  to  till  and  to 
plant ;  nor  could  I,  without  pusillanimity,  omit 
to  claim  so  much.  I  must  not  only  have  a 
name  to  live,  I  must  live.  My  genius  leads  me 
to  build  a  different  manner  of  life  from  any 
of  yours.  I  cannot  then  spare  you  the  whole 
world.  I  love  you  better.  I  must  tell  you  the 
truth  practically ;  and  take  that  which  you  call 
yours.  It  is  God's  world  and  mine  ;  yours  as 
much  as  you  want,  mine  as  much  as  I  want. 
Besides,  I  know  your  ways ;  I  know  the  symp 
toms  of  the  disease.  To  the  end  of  your  power 
you  will  serve  this  lie  which  cheats  you.  Your 
want  is  a  gulf  which  the  possession  of  the  broad 
earth  would  not  fill.  Yonder  sun  in  heaven  you 
would  pluck  down  from  shining  on  the  universe, 
and  make  him  a  property  and  privacy,  if  you 
could  ;  and  the  moon  and  the  north  star  you 
would  quickly  have  occasion  for  in  your  closet 
and  bed-chamber.  What  you  do  not  want  for 
use,  you  crave  for  ornament,  and  what  your 
convenience  could  spare,  your  pride  cannot.' 

On    the   other    hand,   precisely   the   defence 
which  was  set  up  for  the  British  Constitution, 


310  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

namely  that  with  all  its  admitted  defects,  rotten 
boroughs  and  monopolies,  it  worked  well,  and 
substantial  justice  was  somehow  done  ;  the  wis 
dom  and  the  worth  did  get  into  parliament,  and 
every  interest  did  by  right,  or  might,  or  sleight, 
get  represented ;  —  the  same  defence  is  set  up 
for  the  existing  institutions.  They  are  not  the 
best ;  they  are  not  just ;  and  in  respect  to  you, 
personally,  O  brave  young  man !  they  cannot  be 
justified.  They  have,  it  is  most  true,  left  you 
no  acre  for  your  own,  and  no  law  but  our  law, 
to  the  ordaining  of  which  you  were  no  party. 
But  they  do  answer  the  end,  they  are  really 
friendly  to  the  good,  unfriendly  to  the  bad ; 
they  second  the  industrious  and  the  kind;  they 
foster  genius.  They  really  have  so  much  flexi 
bility  as  to  afford  your  talent  and  character,  on 
the  whole,  the  same  chance  of  demonstration 
and  success  which  they  might  have  if  there  was 
no  law  and  no  property. 

It  is  trivial  and  merely  superstitious  to  say 
that  nothing  is  given  you,  no  outfit,  no  exhibi 
tion  ;  for  in  this  institution  of  credit,  which  is 
as  universal  as  honesty  and  promise  in  the  hu 
man  countenance,  always  some  neighbor  stands 
ready  to  be  bread  and  land  and  tools  and  stock 
to  the  young  adventurer.  And  if  in  any  one 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  311 

respect  they  have  come  short,  see  what  ample 
retribution  of  good  they  have  made.  They  have 
lost  no  time  and  spared  no  expense  to  collect 
libraries,  museums,  galleries,  colleges,  palaces, 
hospitals,  observatories,  cities.  The  ages  have 
not  been  idle,  nor  kings  slack,  nor  the  rich  nig 
gardly.  Have  we  not  atoned  for  this  small  of 
fence  (which  we  could  not  help)  of  leaving  you 
no  right  in  the  soil,  by  this  splendid  indem 
nity  of  ancestral  and  national  wealth  ?  Would 
you  have  been  born  like  a  gipsy  in  a  hedge, 
and  preferred  your  freedom  on  a  heath,  and  the 
range  of  a  planet  which  had  no  shed  or  boscage 
to  cover  you  from  sun  and  wind,  —  to  this  tow 
ered  and  citied  world  ?  to  this  world  of  Rome, 
and  Memphis,  and  Constantinople,  and  Vienna, 
and  Paris,  and  London,  and  New  York  ?  For 
thee  Naples,  Florence,  and  Venice ;  for  thee  the 
fair  Mediterranean,  the  sunny  Adriatic ;  for  thee 
both  Indies  smile;  for  thee  the  hospitable  North 
opens  its  heated  palaces  under  the  polar  circle ; 
for  thee  roads  have  been  cut  in  every  direc 
tion  across  the  land,  and  fleets  of  floating  pal 
aces  with  every  security  for  strength  and  pro 
vision  for  luxury,  swim  by  sail  and  by  steam 
through  all  the  waters  of  this  world.  Every 
island  for  thee  has  a  town ;  every  town  a  hotel. 


3i2  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

Though  thou  wast  born  landless,  yet  to  thy 
industry  and  thrift  and  small  condescension  to 
the  established  usage,  —  scores  of  servants  are 
swarming  in  every  strange  place  with  cap  and 
knee  to  thy  command ;  scores,  nay  hundreds  and 
thousands,  for  thy  wardrobe,  thy  table,  thy  cham 
ber,  thy  library,  thy  leisure ;  and  every  whim  is 
anticipated  and  served  by  the  best  ability  of  the 
whole  population  of  each  country.  The  king 
on  the  throne  governs  for  thee,  and  the  judge 
judges ;  the  barrister  pleads,  the  farmer  tills, 
the  joiner  hammers,  the  postman  rides.  Is  it 
not  exaggerating  a  trifle  to  insist  on  a  formal  ac 
knowledgment  of  your  claims,  when  these  sub 
stantial  advantages  have  been  secured  to  you  ? 
Now  can  your  children  be  educated,  your  labor 
turned  to  their  advantage,  and  its  fruits  secured 
to  them  after  your  death.  It  is  frivolous  to  say 
you  have  no  acre,  because  you  have  not  a  math 
ematically  measured  piece  of  land.  Providence 
takes  care  that  you  shall  have  a  place,  that  you 
are  waited  for,  and  come  accredited  ;  and  as  soon 
as  you  put  your  gift  to  use,  you  shall  have  acre 
or  acre's  worth  according  to  your  exhibition  of 
desert,  —  acre,  if  you  need  land; — acre's  worth, 
if  you  prefer  to  draw,  or  carve,  or  make  shoes 
or  wheels,  to  the  tilling  of  the  soil.1 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  313 

Besides,  it  might  temper  your  indignation  at 
the  supposed  wrong  which  society  has  done  you, 
to  keep  the  question  before  you,  how  society 
got  into  this  predicament  ?  Who  put  things  on 
this  false  basis  ?  No  single  man,  but  all  men. 
No  man  voluntarily  and  knowingly ;  but  it  is 
the  result  of  that  degree  of  culture  there  is  in 
the  planet.  The  order  of  things  is  as  good  as 
the  character  of  the  population  permits.  Con 
sider  it  as  the  work  of  a  great  and  beneficent 
and  progressive  necessity,  which,  from  the  first 
pulsation  in  the  first  animal  life,  up  to  the  pre 
sent  high  culture  of  the  best  nations,  has  ad 
vanced  thus  far.  Thank  the  rude  foster-mother, 
though  she  has  taught  you  a  better  wisdom  than 
her  own,  and  has  set  hopes  in  your  heart  which 
shall  be  history  in  the  next  ages.  You  are  your 
self  the  result  of  this  manner  of  living,  this  foul 
compromise,  this  vituperated  Sodom.  It  nour 
ished  you  with  care  and  love  on  its  breast,  as  it 
had  nourished  many  a  lover  of  the  right  and 
many  a  poet,  and  prophet,  and  teacher  of  men. 
Is  it  so  irremediably  bad  ?  Then  again,  if  the 
mitigations  are  considered,  do  not  all  the  mis 
chiefs  virtually  vanish?  The  form  is  bad,  but 
see  you  not  how  every  personal  character  reacts 
on  the  form,  and  makes  it  new  ?  A  strong  per- 


314  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

son  makes  the  law  and  custom  null  before  his 
own  will.  Then  the  principle  of  love  and  truth 
reappears  in  the  strictest  courts  of  fashion  and 
property.  Under  the  richest  robes,  in  the  dar 
lings  of  the  selectest  circles  of  European  or 
American  aristocracy,  the  strong  heart  will  beat 
with  love  of  mankind,  with  impatience  of  acci 
dental  distinctions,  with  the  desire  to  achieve 
its  own  fate  and  make  every  ornament  it  wears 
authentic  and  real. 

Moreover,  as  we  have  already  shown  that 
there  is  no  pure  reformer,  so  it  is  to  be  consid 
ered  that  there  is  no  pure  conservative,  no  man 
who  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life 
maintains  the  defective  institutions  ;  but  he  who 
sets  his  face  like  a  flint  against  every  novelty, 
when  approached  in  the  confidence  of  conver 
sation,  in  the  presence  of  friendly  and  gener 
ous  persons,  has  also  his  gracious  and  relenting 
moments,  and  espouses  for  the  time  the  cause 
of  man  ;  and  even  if  this  be  a  shortlived  emo 
tion,  yet  the  remembrance  of  it  in  private  hours 
mitigates  his  selfishness  and  compliance  with 
custom. 

The  Friar  Bernard  lamented  in  his  cell  on 
Mount  Cenis  the  crimes  of  mankind,  and  rising 
one  morning  before  day  from  his  bed  of  moss 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  315 

and  dry  leaves,  he  gnawed  his  roots  and  berries, 
drank  of  the  spring,  and  set  forth  to  go  to  Rome 
to  reform  the  corruption  of  mankind.  On  his 
way  he  encountered  many  travellers  who  greeted 
him  courteously,  and  the  cabins  of  the  peasants 
and  the  castles  of  the  lords  supplied  his  few 
wants.  When  he  came  at  last  to  Rome,  his 
piety  and  good  will  easily  introduced  him  to 
many  families  of  the  rich,  and  on  the  first  day 
he  saw  and  talked  with  gentle  mothers  with 
their  babes  at  their  breasts,  who  told  him  how 
much  love  they  bore  their  children,  and  how 
they  were  perplexed  in  their  daily  walk  lest  they 
should  fail  in  their  duty  to  them.  c  What ! '  he 
said,  (  and  this  on  rich  embroidered  carpets,  on 
marble  floors,  with  cunning  sculpture,  and  carved 
wood,  and  rich  pictures,  and  piles  of  books 
about  you  ?  '  —  c  Look  at  our  pictures  and 
books/  they  said,  (  and  we  will  tell  you,  good 
Father,  how  we  spent  the  last  evening.  These 
are  stories  of  godly  children  and  holy  families 
and  romantic  sacrifices  made  in  old  or  in  recent 
times  by  great  and  not  mean  persons  ;  and  last 
evening  our  family  was  collected  and  our  hus 
bands  and  brothers  discoursed  sadly  on  what  we 
could  save  and  give  in  the  hard  times/  Then 
came  in  the  men,  and  they  said,  c  What  cheer, 


316  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

brother  ?  Does  thy  convent  want  gifts  ? '  Then 
the  Friar  Bernard  went  home  swiftly  with  other 
thoughts  than  he  brought,  saying,  '  This  way 
of  life  is  wrong,  yet  these  Romans,  whom  I 
prayed  God  to  destroy,  are  lovers,  they  are 
lovers  ;  what  can  I  do  ? ' 

The  reformer  concedes  that  these  mitigations 
exist,  and  that  if  he  proposed  comfort,  he  should 
take  sides  with  the  establishment.  Your  words 
are  excellent,  but  they  do  not  tell  the  whole. 
Conservatism  is  affluent  and  open-handed,  but 
there  is  a  cunning  juggle  in  riches.  I  observe 
that  they  take  somewhat  for  everything  they 
give.  I  look  bigger,  but  am  less  ;  I  have  more 
clothes,  but  am  not  so  warm  ;  more  armor,  but 
less  courage ;  more  books,  but  less  wit.  What 
you  say  of  your  planted,  builded  and  decorated 
world  is  true  enough,  and  I  gladly  avail  myself 
of  its  convenience  ;  yet  I  have  remarked  that 
what  holds  in  particular,  holds  in  general,  that 
the  plant  Man  does  not  require  for  his  most 
glorious  flowering  this  pomp  of  preparation  and 
convenience,  but  the  thoughts  of  some  beggarly 
Homer  who  strolled,  God  knows  when,  in  the 
infancy  and  barbarism  of  the  old  world  ;  the 
gravity  and  sense  of  some  slave  Moses  who 
leads  away  his  fellow  slaves  from  their  masters  ; 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  317 

the  contemplation  of  some  Scythian  Anachar- 
sis  ;  the  erect,  formidable  valor  of  some  Dorian 
townsmen  in  the  town  of  Sparta;  the  vigor  of 
Clovis  the  Frank,  and  Alfred  the  Saxon,  and 
Alaric  the  Goth,  and  Mahomet,  Ali  and  Omar 
the  Arabians,  Saladin  the  Kurd,  and  Othman 
the  Turk,  sufficed  to  build  what  you  call  society 
on  the  spot  and  in  the  instant  when  the  sound 
mind  in  a  sound  body  appeared.  Rich  and 
fine  is  your  dress,  O  conservatism !  your  horses 
are  of  the  best  blood  ;  your  roads  are  well  cut 
and  well  paved;  your  pantry  is  full  of  meats  and 
your  cellar  of  wines,  and  a  very  good  state  and 
condition  are  you  for  gentlemen  and  ladies  to 
live  under ;  but  every  one  of  these  goods  steals 
away  a  drop  of  my  blood.  I  want  the  necessity 
of  supplying  my  own  wants.  All  this  costly 
culture  of  yours  is  not  necessary.  Greatness 
does  not  need  it.  Yonder  peasant,  who  sits  neg 
lected  there  in  a  corner,  carries  a  whole  revolu 
tion  of  man  and  nature  in  his  head,  which  shall 
be  a  sacred  history  to  some  future  ages.  For 
man  is  the  end  of  nature  ;  nothing  so  easily 
organizes  itself  in  every  part  of  the  universe  as 
he  ;  no  moss,  no  lichen  is  so  easily  born ;  and 
he  takes  along  with  him  and  puts  out  from 
himself  the  whole  apparatus  of  society  and  con- 


3i8  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

dition  extempore,  as  an  army  encamps  in  a  desert, 
and  where  all  was  just  now  blowing  sand,  creates 
a  white  city  in  an  hour,  a  government,  a  mar 
ket,  a  place  for  feasting,  for  conversation,  and 
for  love. 

These  considerations,  urged  by  those  whose 
characters  and  whose  fortunes  are  yet  to  be 
formed,  must  needs  command  the  sympathy  of 
all  reasonable  persons.  But  beside  that  char 
ity  which  should  make  all  adult  persons  inter 
ested  for  the  youth,  and  engage  them  to  see 
that  he  has  a  free  field  and  fair  play  on  his  en 
trance  into  life,  we  are  bound  to  see  that  the 
society  of  which  we  compose  a  part,  does  not 
permit  the  formation  or  continuance  of  views 
and  practices  injurious  to  the  honor  and  welfare 
of  mankind.  The  objection  to  conservatism, 
when  embodied  in  a  party,  is  that  in  its  love  of 
acts  it  hates  principles  ;  it  lives  in  the  senses, 
not  in  truth  ;  it  sacrifices  to  despair  ;  it  goes  for 
availableness  in  its  candidate,  not  for  worth; 
and  for  expediency  in  its  measures,  and  not  for 
the  right.  Under  pretence  of  allowing  for  fric 
tion,  it  makes  so  many  additions  and  supple 
ments  to  the  machine  of  society  that  it  will  play 
smoothly  and  softly,  but  will  no  longer  grind 
any  grist. 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  319 

The  conservative  party  in  the  universe  con 
cedes  that  the  radical  would  talk  sufficiently  to 
the  purpose,  if  we  were  still  in  the  garden  of 
Eden  ;  he  legislates  for  man  as  he  ought  to  be  ; 
his  theory  is  right,  but  he  makes  no  allowance 
for  friction  ;  and  this  omission  makes  his  whole' 
doctrine  false.  The  idealist  retorts  that  the  con 
servative  falls  into  a  far  more  noxious  error  in 
the  other  extreme.  The  conservative  assumes 
sickness  as  a  necessity,  and  his  social  frame  is  a 
hospital,  his  total  legislation  is  for  the  present 
distress,  a  universe  in  slippers  and  flannels,  with 
bib  and  pap-spoon,  swallowing  pills  and  herb- 
tea.  Sickness  gets  organized  as  well  as  health, 
the  vice  as  well  as  the  virtue.  Now  that  a  vi 
cious  system  of  trade  has  existed  so  long,  it  has 
stereotyped  itself  in  the  human  generation,  and 
misers  are  born.  And  now  that  sickness  has 
got  such  a  foothold,  leprosy  has  grown  cunning, 
has  got  into  the  ballot-box  ;  the  lepers  outvote 
the  clean ;  society  has  resolved  itself  into  a 
Hospital  Committee,  and  all  its  laws  are  quar 
antine.  If  any  man  resist  and  set  up  a  foolish 
hope  he  has  entertained  as  good  against  the 
general  despair,  Society  frowns  on  him,  shuts 
him  out  of  her  opportunities,  her  granaries,  her 
refectories,  her  water  and  bread,  and  will  serve 


320  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

him  a  sexton's  turn.  Conservatism  takes  as  low 
a  view  of  every  part  of  human  action  and  pas 
sion.  Its  religion  is  just  as  bad  ;  a  lozenge  for 
the  sick  ;  a  dolorous  tune  to  beguile  the  dis 
temper  ;  mitigations  of  pain  by  pillows  and 
anodynes  ;  always  mitigations,  never  remedies  ; 
pardons  for  sin,  funeral  honors,  —  never  self- 
help,  renovation,  and  virtue.  Its  social  and  poli 
tical  action  has  no  better  aim  ;  to  keep  out  wind 
and  weather,  to  bring  the  week  and  year  about, 
and  make  the  world  last  our  day ;  not  to  sit  on 
the  world  and  steer  it ;  not  to  sink  the  memory 
of  the  past  in  the  glory  of  a  new  and  more  ex 
cellent  creation  ;  a  timid  cobbler  and  patcher,  it 
degrades  whatever  it  touches.  The  cause  of  ed 
ucation  is  urged  in  this  country  with  the  utmost 
earnestness,  —  on  what  ground  ?  Why  on  this, 
that  the  people  have  the  power,  and  if  they  are 
not  instructed  to  sympathize  with  the  intelligent, 
reading,  trading,  and  governing  class  ;  inspired 
with  a  taste  for  the  same  competitions  and  prizes, 
they  will  upset  the  fair  pageant  of  Judicature, 
and  perhaps  lay  a  hand  on  the  sacred  muniments 
of  wealth  itself,  and  new  distribute  the  land. 
Religion  is  taught  in  the  same  spirit.  The  con 
tractors  who  were  building  a  road  out  of  Balti 
more,  some  years  ago,  found  the  Irish  laborers 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  321 

quarrelsome  and  refractory  to  a  degree  that  em 
barrassed  the  agents  and  seriously  interrupted 
the  progress  of  the  work.  The  corporation  were 
advised  to  call  off  the  police  and  build  a  Catho 
lic  chapel,  which  they  did  ;  the  priest  presently 
restored  order,  and  the  work  went  on  prosper 
ously.  Such  hints,  be  sure,  are  too  valuable  to  be 
lost.  If  you  do  not  value  the  Sabbath,  or  other 
religious  institutions,  give  yourself  no  concern 
about  maintaining  them.  They  have  already 
acquired  a  market  value  as  conservators  of  pro 
perty  ;  and  if  priest  and  church-member  should 
fail,  the  chambers  of  commerce  and  the  presi 
dents  of  the  banks,  the  very  innholders  and 
landlords  of  the  county,  would  muster  with  fury 
to  their  support. 

Of  course,  religion  in  such  hands  loses  its 
essence.  Instead  of  that  reliance  which  the  soul 
suggests,  on  the  eternity  of  truth  and  duty,  men 
are  misled  into  a  reliance  on  institutions,  which, 
the  moment  they  cease  to  be  the  instantaneous 
creations  of  the  devout  sentiment,  are  worthless. 
Religion  among  the  low  becomes  low.  As  it 
loses  its  truth,  it  loses  credit  with  the  sagacious. 
They  detect  the  falsehood  of  the  preaching,  but 
when  they  say  so,  all  good  citizens  cry,  Hush  ; 
do  not  weaken  the  State,  do  not  take  off  the 


322  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

strait  jacket  from  dangerous  persons.  Every 
honest  fellow  must  keep  up  the  hoax  the  best 
he  can  ;  must  patronize  Providence  and  piety, 
and  wherever  he  sees  anything  that  will  keep 
men  amused,  schools  or  churches  or  poetry  or 
picture-galleries  or  music,  or  what  not,  he  must 
cry  cHist-a-boy,'  and  urge  the  game  on.  What 
a  compliment  we  pay  to  the  good  SPIRIT  with 
our  superserviceable  zeal ! 

But  not  to  balance  reasons  for  and  against 
the  establishment  any  longer,  and  if  it  still  be 
asked  in  this  necessity  of  partial  organization, 
which  party  on  the  whole  has  the  highest  claims 
on  our  sympathy,  —  I  bring  it  home  to  the 
private  heart,  where  all  such  questions  must 
have  their  final  arbitrament.  How  will  every 
strong  and  generous  mind  choose  its  ground, 
—  with  the  defenders  of  the  old?  or  with  the 
seekers  of  the  new  ?  Which  is  that  state  which 
promises  to  edify  a  great,  brave,  and  beneficent 
man  ;  to  throw  him  on  his  resources,  and  tax 
the  strength  of  his  character  ?  On  which  part 
will  each  of  us  find  himself  in  the  hour  of  health 
and  of  aspiration  ? 

I  understand  well  the  respect  of  mankind  for 
war,  because  that  breaks  up  the  Chinese  stagna 
tion  of  society,  and  demonstrates  the  personal 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  323 

merits  of  all  men.  A  state  of  war  or  anarchy,  in 
which  law  has  little  force,  is  so  far  valuable  that 
it  puts  every  man  on  trial.  The  man  of  princi 
ple  is  known  as  such,  and  even  in  the  fury  of 
faction  is  respected.  In  the  civil  wars  of  France, 
Montaigne  alone,  among  all  the  French  gentry, 
kept  his  castle  gates  unbarred,  and  made  his 
personal  integrity  as  good  at  least  as  a  regiment. 
The  man  of  courage  and  resources  is  shown, 
and  the  effeminate  and  base  person.  Those  who 
rise  above  war,  and  those  who  fall  below  it,  it 
easily  discriminates,  as  well  as  those  who,  accept 
ing  its  rude  conditions,  keep  their  own  head  by 
their  own  sword. 

But  in  peace  and  a  commercial  state  we  de 
pend,  not  as  we  ought,  on  our  knowledge  and 
all  men's  knowledge  that  we  are  honest  men, 
but  we  cowardly  lean  on  the  virtue  of  others. 
For  it  is  always  at  last  the  virtue  of  some  men 
in  the  society,  which  keeps  the  law  in  any  rever 
ence  and  power.  Is  there  not  something  shame 
ful  that  I  should  owe  my  peaceful  occupancy  of 
my  house  and  field,  not  to  the  knowledge  of 
my  countrymen  that  I  am  useful,  but  to  their 
respect  for  sundry  other  reputable  persons,  I 
know  not  whom,  whose  joint  virtue  still  keeps 
the  law  in  good  odor  ? 


324  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

It  will  never  make  any  difference  to  a  hero 
what  the  laws  are.  His  greatness  will  shine  and 
accomplish  itself  unto  the  end,  whether  they 
second  him  or  not.  If  he  have  earned  his  bread 
by  drudgery,  and  in  the  narrow  and  crooked 
ways  which  were  all  an  evil  law  had  left  him, 
he  will  make  it  at  least  honorable  by  his  ex 
penditure.  Of  the  past  he  will  take  no  heed ; 
for  its  wrongs  he  will  not  hold  himself  responsi 
ble  :  he  will  say,  All  the  meanness  of  my  pro 
genitors  shall  not  bereave  me  of  the  power  to 
make  this  hour  and  company  fair  and  fortunate. 
Whatsoever  streams  of  power  and  commodity 
flow  to  me,  shall  of  me  acquire  healing  virtue, 
and  become  fountains  of  safety.  Cannot  I  too 
descend  a  Redeemer  into  nature?  Whosoever 
hereafter  shall  name  my  name,  shall  not  record 
a  malefactor  but  a  benefactor  in  the  earth.  If 
there  be  power  in  good  intention,  in  fidelity, 
and  in  toil,  the  north  wind  shall  be  purer,  the 
stars  in  heaven  shall  glow  with  a  kindlier  beam, 
that  I  have  lived.  I  am  primarily  engaged  to 
myself  to  be  a  public  servant  of  all  the  gods,  to 
demonstrate  to  all  men  that  there  is  intelligence 
and  good  will  at  the  heart  of  things,  and  ever 
higher  and  yet  higher  leadings.  These  are  my 
engagements  ;  how  can  your  law  further  or  hin- 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  325 

der  me  in  what  I  shall  do  to  men  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  these  dispositions  establish  their 
relations  to  me.  Wherever  there  is  worth,  I 
shall  be  greeted.  Wherever  there  are  men,  are 
the  objects  of  my  study  and  love.  Sooner  or 
later  all  men  will  be  my  friends,  and  will  tes 
tify  in  all  methods  the  energy  of  their  regard. 
I  cannot  thank  your  law  for  my  protection.  I 
protect  it.  It  is  not  in  its  power  to  protect  me. 
It  is  my  business  to  make  myself  revered.  I 
depend  on  my  honor,  my  labor,  and  my  dispo 
sitions  for  my  place  in  the  affections  of  man 
kind,  and  not  on  any  conventions  or  parchments 
of  yours.1 

But  if  I  allow  myself  in  derelictions  and  be 
come  idle  and  dissolute,  I  quickly  come  to  love 
the  protection  of  a  strong  law,  because  I  feel  no 
title  in  myself  to  my  advantages.  To  the  in 
temperate  and  covetous  person  no  love  flows  ; 
to  him  mankind  would  pay  no  rent,  no  divi 
dend,  if  force  were  once  relaxed ;  nay,  if  they 
could  give  their  verdict,  they  would  say  that 
his  self-indulgence  and  his  oppression  deserved 
punishment  from  society,  and  not  that  rich 
board  and  lodging  he  now  enjoys.  The  law 
acts  then  as  a  screen  of  his  unworthiness,  and 
makes  him  worse  the  longer  it  protects  him. 


326  THE  CONSERVATIVE 

In  conclusion,  to  return  from  this  alternation 
of  partial  views  to  the  high  platform  of  univer 
sal  and  necessary  history,  it  is  a  happiness  for 
mankind  that  innovation  has  got  on  so  far  and 
has  so  free  a  field  before  it.  The  boldness  of 
the  hope  men  entertain  transcends  all  former 
experience.  It  calms  and  cheers  them  with  the 
picture  of  a  simple  and  equal  life  of  truth  and 
piety.  And  this  hope  flowered  on  what  tree  ? 
It  was  not  imported  from  the  stock  of  some 
celestial  plant,  but  grew  here  on  the  wild  crab 
of  conservatism.  It  is  much  that  this  old  and 
vituperated  system  of  things  has  borne  so  fair 
a  child.  It  predicts  that  amidst  a  planet  peo 
pled  with  conservatives,  one  Reformer  may  yet 
be  born. 


THE   TRANSCENDENTALIST 

A   LECTURE   READ   AT   THE   MASONIC    TEMPLE, 
BOSTON,  JANUARY,  1842 


THE 
TRANSCENDENTALIST 

THE  first  thing  we  have  to  say  respecting 
what  are  called  new  views  here  in  New 
England,  at  the  present  time,  is,  that  they  are 
not  new,  but  the  very  oldest  of  thoughts  cast 
into  the  mould  of  these  new  times.  The  light 
is  always  identical  in  its  composition,  but  it  falls 
on  a  great  variety  of  objects,  and  by  so  falling 
is  first  revealed  to  us,  not  in  its  own  form,  for 
it  is  formless,  but  in  theirs ;  in  like  manner, 
thought  only  appears  in  the  objects  it  classifies. 
What  is  popularly  called  Transcendentalism 
among  us,  is  Idealism  ;  Idealism  as  it  appears  in 
1842.  As  thinkers,  mankind  have  ever  divided 
into  two  sects,  Materialists  and  Idealists  ;  the 
first  class  founding  on  experience,  the  second 
on  consciousness ;  the  first  class  beginning  to 
think  from  the  data  of  the  senses,  the  second 
class  perceive  that  the  senses  are  not  final,  and 
say,  The  senses  give  us  representations  of 
things,  but  what  are  the  things  themselves,  they 
cannot  tell.  The  materialist  insists  on  facts,  on 
history,  on  the  force  of  circumstances  and  the 
animal  wants  of  man ;  the  idealist  on  the  power 


330        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

of  Thought  and  of  Will,  on  inspiration,  on  mir 
acle,  on  individual  culture.  These  two  modes 
of  thinking  are  both  natural,  but  the  idealist 
contends  that  his  way  of  thinking  is  in  higher 
nature.  He  concedes  all  that  the  other  affirms, 
admits  the  impressions  of  sense,  admits  their 
coherency,  their  use  and  beauty,  and  then  asks 
the  materialist  for  his  grounds  of  assurance  that 
things  are  as  his  senses  represent  them.  But  I, 
he  says,  affirm  facts  not  affected  by  the  illusions 
of  sense,  facts  which  are  of  the  same  nature  as 
the  faculty  which  reports  them,  and  not  liable 
to  doubt ;  facts  which  in  their  first  appearance  to 
us  assume  a  native  superiority  to  material  facts, 
degrading  these  into  a  language  by  which  the 
first  are  to  be  spoken ;  facts  which  it  only  needs 
a  retirement  from  the  senses  to  discern.  Every 
materialist  will  be  an  idealist ;  but  an  idealist 
can  never  go  backward  to  be  a  materialist.1 

The  idealist,  in  speaking  of  events,  sees  them 
as  spirits.  He  does  not  deny  the  sensuous  fact: 
by  no  means ;  but  he  will  not  see  that  alone. 
He  does  not  deny  the  presence  of  this  table, 
this  chair,  and  the  walls  of  this  room,  but  he 
looks  at  these  things  as  the  reverse  side  of  the 
tapestry,  as  the  other  end>  each  being  a  sequel 
or  completion  of  a  spiritual  fact  which  nearly 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        331 

concerns  him.  This  manner  of  looking  at  things 
transfers  every  object  in  nature  from  an  inde 
pendent  and  anomalous  position  without  there, 
into  the  consciousness.  Even  the  materialist 
Condillac,  perhaps  the  most  logical  expounder 
of  materialism, was  constrained  to  say,  "Though 
we  should  soar  into  the  heavens,  though  we 
should  sink  into  the  abyss,  we  never  go  out  of 
ourselves  ;  it  is  always  our  own  thought  that  we 
perceive."  What  more  could  an  idealist  say  ? 
The  materialist,  secure  in  the  certainty  of 
sensation,  mocks  at  fine-spun  theories,  at  star- 
gazers  and  dreamers,  and  believes  that  his  life  is 
solid,  that  he  at  least  takes  nothing  for  granted, 
but  knows  where  he  stands,  and  what  he  does. 
Yet  how  easy  it  is  to  show  him  that  he  also  is 
a  phantom  walking  and  working  amid  phan 
toms,  and  that  he  need  only  ask  a  question  or 
two  beyond  his  daily  questions  to  find  his  solid 
universe  growing  dim  and  impalpable  before 
his  sense.  The  sturdy  capitalist,  no  matter  how 
deep  and  square  on  blocks  of  Quincy  granite  he 
lays  the  foundations  of  his  banking-house  or 
Exchange,  must  set  it,  at  last,  not  on  a  cube 
corresponding  to  the  angles  of  his  structure,  but  ' 
on  a  mass  of  unknown  materials  and  solidity, 
red-hot  or  white-hot  perhaps  at  the  core,  which 


332        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

rounds  off  to  an  almost  perfect  sphericity,  and 
lies  floating  in  soft  air,  and  goes  spinning  away, 
dragging  bank  and  banker  with  it  at  a  rate  of 
thousands  of  miles  the  hour,  he  knows  not 
whither, — a  bit  of  bullet,  now  glimmering,  now 
darkling  through  a  small  cubic  space  on  the 
edge  of  an  unimaginable  pit  of  emptiness.  And 
this  wild  balloon,  in  which  his  whole  venture  is 
embarked,  is  a  just  symbol  of  his  whole  state 
and  faculty.  One  thing  at  least,  he  says,  is  cer 
tain,  and  does  not  give  me  the  headache,  that 
figures  do  not  lie ;  the  multiplication  table  has 
been  hitherto  found  unimpeachable  truth  ;  and, 
moreover,  if  I  put  a  gold  eagle  in  my  safe, 
I  find  it  again  to  -  morrow ;  —  but  for  these 
thoughts,  I  know  not  whence  they  are.  They 
change  and  pass  away.  But  ask  him  why  he 
believes  that  an  uniform  experience  will  con 
tinue  uniform,  or  on  what  grounds  he  founds 
his  faith  in  his  figures,  and  he  will  perceive  that 
his  mental  fabric  is  built  up  on  just  as  strange 
and  quaking  foundations  as  his  proud  edifice 
of  stone. 

In  the  order  of  thought,  the  materialist  takes 
his  departure  from  the  external  world,  and  es 
teems  a  man  as  one  product  of  that.  The  ideal 
ist  takes  his  departure  from  his  consciousness. 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        333 

and  reckons  the  world  an  appearance.1  The 
materialist  respects  sensible  masses,  Society, 
Government,  social  art  and  luxury,  every  es 
tablishment,  every  mass,  whether  majority  of 
numbers,  or  extent  of  space,  or  amount  of  ob 
jects,  every  social  action.  The  idealist  has  an 
other  measure,  which  is  metaphysical,  namely 
the  rank  which  things  themselves  take  in  his 
consciousness  ;  not  at  all  the  size  or  appearance. 
Mind  is  the  only  reality,  of  which  men  and  all 
other  natures  are  better  or  worse  reflectors. 
Nature,  literature,  history,  are  only  subjective 
phenomena.  Although  in  his  action  overpow 
ered  by  the  laws  of  action,  and  so,  warmly  co 
operating  with  men,  even  preferring  them  to 
himself,  yet  when  he  speaks  scientifically,  or 
after  the  order  of  thought,  he  is  constrained  to 
degrade  persons  into  representatives  of  truths. 
He  does  not  respect  labor,  or  the  products  of 
labor,  namely  property,  otherwise  than  as  a 
manifold  symbol,  illustrating  with  wonderful 
fidelity  of  details  the  laws  of  being ;  he  does  not 
respect  government,  except  as  far  as  it  reiterates 
the  law  of  his  mind  ;  nor  the  church,  nor  chari 
ties,  nor  arts,  for  themselves ;  but  hears,  as  at  a 
vast  distance,  what  they  say,  as  if  his  conscious 
ness  would  speak  to  him  through  a  pantomimic 


334        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

scene.  His  thought,  —  that  is  the  Universe. 
His  experience  inclines  him  to  behold  the 
procession  of  facts  you  call  the  world,  as  flow 
ing  perpetually  outward  from  an  invisible,  un 
sounded  centre  in  himself,  centre  alike  of  him 
and  of  them,  and  necessitating  him  to  regard  all 
things  as  having  a  subjective  or  relative  exist 
ence,  relative  to  that  aforesaid  Unknown  Centre 
of  him. 

From  this  transfer  of  the  world  into  the  con 
sciousness,  this  beholding  of  all  things  in  the 
mind,  follow  easily  his  whole  ethics.  It  is  sim 
pler  to  be  self-dependent.  The  height,  the 
deity  of  man  is  to  be  self-sustained,  to  need  no 
gift,  no  foreign  force.  Society  is  good  when  it 
does  not  violate  me,  but  best  when  it  is  likest 
to  solitude.  Everything  real  is  self-existent. 
Everything  divine  shares  the  self-existence  of 
Deity.  All  that  you  call  the  world  is  the  shadow 
of  that  substance  which  you  are,  the  perpet 
ual  creation  of  the  powers  of  thought,  of  those 
that  are  dependent  and  of  those  that  are  inde 
pendent  of  your  will.  Do  not  cumber  yourself 
with  fruitless  pains  to  mend  and  remedy  remote 
effects ;  let  the  soul  be  erect,  and  all  things  will 
go  well.  You  think  me  the  child  of  my  circum 
stances  :  I  make  my  circumstance.  Let  any 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        335 

thought  or  motive  of  mine  be  different  from 
that  they  are,  the  difference  will  transform  my 
condition  and  economy.  I  —  this  thought  which 
is  called  I  —  is  the  mould  into  which  the  world 
is  poured  like  melted  wax.  The  mould  is  in 
visible,  but  the  world  betrays  the  shape  of  the 
mould.  You  call  it  the  power  of  circumstance, 
but  it  is  the  power  of  me.  Am  I  in  harmony 
with  myself?  my  position  will  seem  to  you  just 
and  commanding.  Am  I  vicious  and  insane  ? 
my  fortunes  will  seem  to  you  obscure  and  de 
scending.  As  I  am,  so  shall  I  associate,  and  so 
shall  I  act;  Caesar's  history  will  paint  out  Caesar. 
Jesus  acted  so,  because  he  thought  so.  I  do 
not  wish  to  overlook  or  to  gainsay  any  reality  ; 
I  say  I  make  my  circumstance;  but  if  you  ask 
me,  Whence  am  I  ?  I  feel  like  other  men  my 
relation  to  that  Fact  which  cannot  be  spoken, 
or  defined,  nor  even  thought,  but  which  exists, 
and  will  exist. 

The  Transcendentalist  adopts  the  whole  con 
nection  of  spiritual  doctrine.  He  believes  in 
miracle,  in  the  perpetual  openness  of  the  human 
mind  to  new  influx  of  light  and  power  ;  he  be 
lieves  in  inspiration,  and  in  ecstasy.1  He  wishes 
that  the  spiritual  principle  should  be  suffered  to 
demonstrate  itself  to  the  end,  in  all  possible 


336        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

applications  to  the  state  of  man,  without  the 
admission  of  anything  unspiritual ;  that  is,  any 
thing  positive,  dogmatic,  personal.  Thus  the 
spiritual  measure  of  inspiration  is  the  depth  of 
the  thought,  and  never,  who  said  it  ?  And  so 
he  resists  all  attempts  to  palm  other  rules  and 
measures  on  the  spirit  than  its  own. 

In  action  he  easily  incurs  the  charge  of  anti- 
nomianism  by  his  avowal  that  he,  who  has  the 
Law-giver,  may  with  safety  not  only  neglect, 
but  even  contravene  every  written  command 
ment.  In  the  play  of  Othello,  the  expiring  Des- 
demona  absolves  her  husband  of  the  murder,  to 
her  attendant  Emilia.  Afterwards,  when  Emilia 
charges  him  with  the  crime,  Othello  exclaims, 

"  You  heard  her  say  herself  it  was  not  I." 
Emilia  replies, 

"  The  more  angel  she,  and  thou  the  blacker  devil." 

Of  this  fine  incident,  Jacobi,  the  Transcen 
dental  moralist,  makes  use,  with  other  parallel 
instances,  in  his  reply  to  Fichte.  Jacobi,  refus 
ing  all  measure  of  right  and  wrong  except  the 
determinations  of  the  private  spirit,  remarks  that 
there  is  no  crime  but  has  sometimes  been  a  vir 
tue.  "  I,"  he  says,  "  am  that  atheist,  that  god 
less  person  who,  in  opposition  to  an  imaginary 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        337 

doctrine  of  calculation,  would  lie  as  the  dying 
Desdemona  lied ;  would  lie  and  deceive,  as 
Pylades  when  he  personated  Orestes ;  would 
assassinate  like  Timoleon  ;  would  perjure  my 
self  like  Epaminondas  and  John  de  Witt ;  I 
would  resolve  on  suicide  like  Cato ;  I  would 
commit  sacrilege  with  David  ;  yea,  and  pluck 
ears  of  corn  on  the  Sabbath,  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  I  was  fainting  for  lack  of  food.  For  I 
have  assurance  in  myself  that  in  pardoning  these 
faults  according  to  the  letter,  man  exerts  the 
sovereign  right  which  the  majesty  of  his  being 
confers  on  him  ;  he  sets  the  seal  of  his  divine 
nature  to  the  grace  he  accords."  x 

In  like  manner,  if  there  is  anything  grand 
and  daring  in  human  thought  or  virtue,  any  re 
liance  on  the  vast,  the  unknown  ;  any  presenti 
ment,  any  extravagance  of  faith,  the  spiritualist 
adopts  it  as  most  in  nature.  The  oriental  mind 
has  always  tended  to  this  largeness.  Buddhism  is 
an  expression  of  it.  The  Buddhist,  who  thanks 
no  man,  who  says,  "  Do  not  flatter  your  bene 
factors,"  but  who,  in  his  conviction  that  every 
good  deed  can  by  no  possibility  escape  its  re 
ward,  will  not  deceive  the  benefactor  by  pre 
tending  that  he  has  done  more  than  he  should, 
is  a  Transcendentalist. 


338        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

You  will  see  by  this  sketch  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  Transcendental  'party ;  that 
there  is  no  pure  Transcendentalist ;  that  we 
know  of  none  but  prophets  and  heralds  of  such 
a  philosophy  ;  that  all  who  by  strong  bias  of 
nature  have  leaned  to  the  spiritual  side  in  doc 
trine,  have  stopped  short  of  their  goal.  We 
have  had  many  harbingers  and  forerunners  ;  but 
of  a  purely  spiritual  life,  history  has  afforded 
no  example.  I  mean  we  have  yet  no  man  who 
has  leaned  entirely  on  his  character,  and  eaten 
angels*  food ;  who,  trusting  to  his  sentiments, 
found  life  made  of  miracles ;  who,  working 
for  universal  aims,  found  himself  fed,  he  knew 
not  how  ;  clothed,  sheltered,  and  weaponed,  he 
knew  not  how,  and  yet  it  was  done  by  his  own 
hands.1  Only  in  the  instinct  of  the  lower  ani 
mals  we  find  the  suggestion  of  the  methods  of 
it,  and  something  higher  than  our  understand 
ing.  The  squirrel  hoards  nuts  and  the  bee 
gathers  honey,  without  knowing  what  they  do, 
and  they  are  thus  provided  for  without  selfish 
ness  or  disgrace. 

Shall  we  say  then  that  Transcendentalism  is 
the  Saturnalia  or  excess  of  Faith  ;  the  presenti 
ment  of  a  faith  proper  to  man  in  his  integrity, 
excessive  only  when  his  imperfect  obedience 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        339 

hinders  the  satisfaction  of  his  wish  ?  Nature  is 
transcendental,  exists  primarily,  necessarily,  ever 
works  and  advances,  yet  takes  no  thought  for  the 
morrow.  Man  owns  the  dignity  of  the  life  which 
throbs  around  him,  in  chemistry,  and  tree,  and 
animal,  and  in  the  involuntary  functions  of  his 
own  body  ;  yet  he  is  balked  when  he  tries  to 
fling  himself  into  this  enchanted  circle,  where 
all  is  done  without  degradation.  Yet  genius  and 
virtue  predict  in  man  the  same  absence  of  pri 
vate  ends  and  of  condescension  to-circumstances, 
united  with  every  trait  and  talent  of  beauty  and 
power. 

This  way  of  thinking,  falling  on  Roman  times, 
made  Stoic  philosophers;  falling  on  despotic 
times,  made  patriot  Catos  and  Brutuses  ;  falling 
on  superstitious  times,  made  prophets  and  apos 
tles  ;  on  popish  times,  made  protestants  and 
ascetic  monks,  preachers  of  Faith  against  the 
preachers  of  Works  ;  on  prelatical  times,  made 
Puritans  and  Quakers  ;  and  falling  on  Unitarian 
and  commercial  times,  makes  the  peculiar  shades 
of  Idealism  which  we  know. 

It  is  well  known  to  most  of  my  audience  that 
the  Idealism  of  the  present  day  acquired  the 
name  o£  Transcendental  from  the  use  of  that 
term  by  Immanuel  Kant,  of  Konigsberg,  who 


340        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

replied  to  the  skeptical  philosophy  of  Locke, 
which  insisted  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  in 
tellect  which  was  not  previously  in  the  experi 
ence  of  the  senses,  Jby  showing  that  there  was  a 
very  important  classof  ideas  or  imperative  forms, 
which  did  not  come  by  experience,  but  through 
which  experience  was  acquired  ;  that  these  were 
intuitions  of  the  mind  itself;  and  he  denomi 
nated  them  Transcendental  forms.]  The  extraor 
dinary  profoundness  and  precision  of  that  man's 
thinking  have  given  vogue  to  his  nomenclature, 
in  Europe  and  America,  to  that  extent  that 
whatever  belongs  to  the  class  of  intuitive  thought 
is  popularly  called  at  the  present  day  Transcen 
dental. 

Although,  as  we  have  said,  there  is  no  pure 
Transcendentalist,  yet  the  tendency  to  respect 
the  intuitions  and  to  give  them,  at  least  in  our 
creed,  all  authority  over  our  experience,  has 
deeply  colored  the  conversation  and  poetry  of 
the  present  day  ;  and  the  history  of  genius  and 
of  religion  in  these  times,  though  impure,  and 
as  yet  not  incarnated  in  any  powerful  individual, 
will  be  the  history  of  this  tendency. 

It  is  a  sign  of  our  times,  conspicuous  to  the 
coarsest  observer,  that  many  intelligent  and  re 
ligious  persons  withdraw  themselves  from  the 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        341 

common  labors  and  competitions  of  the  mar 
ket  and  the  caucus,  and  betake  themselves  to  a 
certain  solitary  and  critical  way  of  living,  from 
which  no  solid  fruit  has  yet  appeared  to  justify 
their  separation.  They  hold  themselves  aloof: 
they  feel  the  disproportion  between  their  facul 
ties  and  the  work  offered  them,  and  they  prefer 
to  ramble  in  the  country  and  perish  of  ennui,  to 
the  degradation  of  such  charities-  and  such  am 
bitions  as  the  city  can  propose  to  them.  They 
are  striking  work,  and  crying  out  for  somewhat 
worthy  to  do !  What  they  do  is  done  only  be 
cause  they  are  overpowered  by  the  humanities 
that  speak  on  all  sides;  and  they  consent  to  such 
labor  as  is  open  to  them,  though  to  their  lofty 
dream  the  writing  of  Iliads  or  Hamlets,  or  the 
building  of  cities  or  empires  seems  drudgery. 

Now  every  one  must  do  after  his  kind,  be  he 
asp  or  angel,  and  these  must.  The  question 
which  a  wise  man  and  a  student  of  modern  his 
tory  will  ask,  is,  what  that  kind  is  ?  And  truly, 
as  in  ecclesiastical  history  we  take  so  much  pains 
to  know  what  the  Gnostics,  what  the  Essenes, 
what  the  Manichees,  and  what  the  Reformers 
believed,  it  would  not  misbecome  us  to  inquire 
nearer  home,  what  these  companions  and  con 
temporaries  of  ours  think  and  do,  at  least  so  far  as 


342        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

these  thoughts  and  actions  appear  to  be  not  acci 
dental  and  personal,  but  common  to  many,  and 
the  inevitable  flower  of  the  Tree  of  Time.  Our 
American  literature  and  spiritual  history  are,  we 
confess,  in  the  optative  mood  ;  but  whoso  knows 
these  seething  brains,  these  admirable  radicals, 
these  unsocial  worshippers,  these  talkers  who 
talk  the  sun  and  moon  away,  will  believe  that 
this  heresy  cannot  pass  away  without  leaving  its 
mark.1 

They  are  lonely  ;  the  spirit  of  their  writing 
and  conversation  is  lonely;  they  repel  influences; 
they  shun  general  society  ;  they  incline  to  shut 
themselves  in  their  chamber  in  the  house,  to  live 
in  the  country  rather  than  in  the  town, and  to  find 
their  tasks  and  amusements  in  solitude.  Society, 
to  be  sure,  does  not  like  this  very  well ;  it  saith, 
Whoso  goes  to  walk  alone,  accuses  the  whole 
world ;  he  declares  all  to  be  unfit  to  be  his  com 
panions  ;  it  is  very  uncivil,  nay,  insulting ;  So 
ciety  will  retaliate.2  Meantime,  this  retirement 
does  not  proceed  from  any  whim  on  the  part 
of  these  separators  ;  but  if  any  one  will  take 
pains  to  talk  with  them,  he  will  find  that  this 
part  is  chosen  both  from  temperament  and  from 
principle  ;  with  some  unwillingness  too,  and  as 
a  choice  of  the  less  of  two  evils ;  for  these  per- 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        343 

sons  are  not  by  nature  melancholy,  sour,  and 
unsocial, —  they  are  not  stockish  or  brute, — 
but  joyous,  susceptible,  affectionate  ;  they  have 
even  more  than  others  a  great  wish  to  be  loved. 
Like  the  young  Mozart,  they  are  rather  ready 
to  cry  ten  times  a  day,  "  But  are  you  sure  you 
love  me  ? "  Nay,  if  they  tell  you  their  whole 
thought,  they  will  own  that  love  seems  to  them 
the  last  and  highest  gift  of  nature;  that  there 
are  persons  whom  in  their  hearts  they  daily 
thank  for  existing,  —  persons  whose  faces  are 
perhaps  unknown  to  them,  but  whose  fame  and 
spirit  have  penetrated  their  solitude,  —  and  for 
whose  sake  they  wish  to  exist.  To  behold  the 
beauty  of  another  character,  which  inspires  a 
new  interest  in  our  own  ;  to  behold  the  beauty 
lodged  in  a  human  being,  with  such  vivacity  of 
apprehension  that  I  am  instantly  forced  home 
to  inquire  if  I  am  not  deformity  itself;  to  behold 
in  another  the  expression  of  a  love  so  high  that 
it  assures  itself, —  assures  itself  also  to  me  against 
every  possible  casualty  except  my  unworthiness; 
—  these  are  degrees  on  the  scale  of  human  hap 
piness  to  which  they  have  ascended ;  and  it  is  a 
fidelity  to  this  sentiment  which  has  made  com 
mon  association  distasteful  to  them.  They  wish 
a  just  and  even  fellowship,  or  none.  They  can- 


344        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

not  gossip  with  you,  and  they  do  not  wish,  as 
they  are  sincere  and  religious,  to  gratify  any 
mere  curiosity  which  you  may  entertain.  Like 
fairies,  they  do  not  wish  to  be  spoken  of.  Love 
me,  they  say,  but  do  not  ask  who  is  my  cousin 
and  my  uncle.  If  you  do  not  need  to  hear  my 
thought,  because  you  can  read  it  in  my  face  and 
behavior,  then  I  will  tell  it  you  from  sunrise  to 
sunset.  If  you  cannot  divine  it,  you  would  not 
understand  what  I  say.  I  will  not  molest  my 
self  for  you.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  profaned. 

And  yet,  it  seems  as  if  this  loneliness,  and 
not  this  love,  would  prevail  in  their  circum 
stances,  because  of  the  extravagant  demand  they 
make  on  human  nature.  That,  indeed,  consti 
tutes  a  new  feature  in  their  portrait,  that  they 
are  the  most  exacting  and  extortionate  critics. 
Their  quarrel  with  every  man  they  meet  is  not 
with  his  kind,  but  with  his  degree.  There  is  not 
enough  of  him,  —  that  is  the  only  fault.  They 
prolong  their  privilege  of  childhood  in  this 
wise ;  of  doing  nothing,  but  making  immense 
demands  on  all  the  gladiators  in  the  lists  of  ac 
tion  and  fame.  They  make  us  feel  the  strange 
disappointment  which  overcasts  every  human 
youth.  So  many  promising  youths,  and  never 
a  finished  man  !  The  profound  nature  will  have 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        345 

a  savage  rudeness ;  the  delicate  one  will  be 
shallow,  or  the  victim  of  sensibility  ;  the  richly 
accomplished  will  have  some  capital  absurdity ; 
and  so  every  piece  has  a  crack.  'T  is  strange, 
but  this  masterpiece  is  the  result  of  such  an  ex 
treme  delicacy  that  the  most  unobserved  flaw  in 
the  boy  will  neutralize  the  most  aspiring  genius, 
and  spoil  the  work.  Talk  with  a  seaman  of  the 
hazards  to  life  in  his  profession  and  he  will  ask 
you,  c  Where  are  the  old  sailors  ?  Do  you  not 
see  that  all  are  young  men  ?  '  And  we,  on  this 
sea  of  human  thought,  in  like  manner  inquire, 
Where  are  the  old  idealists  ?  where  are  they 
who  represented  to  the  last  generation  that  ex 
travagant  hope  which  a  few  happy  aspirants 
suggest  to  ours?  In  looking  at  the  class  of 
counsel,  and  power,  and  wealth,  and  at  the  ma- 
tronage  of  the  land,  amidst  all  the  prudence 
and  all  the  triviality,  ^one  asks,  Where  are  they 
who  represented  genius,  virtue,  the  invisible  and 
heavenly  world,  to  these?  Are  they  dead,  - 
taken  in  early  ripeness  to  the  gods,  —  as  an 
cient  wisdom  foretold  their  fate?  Or  did  the 
high  idea  die  out  of  them,  and  leave  their  un- 
perfumed  body  as  its  tomb  and  tablet,  announ 
cing  to  all  that  the  celestial  inhabitant,  who  once 
gave  them  beauty,  had  departed  ?  Will  it  be 


346        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

better  with  the  new  generation  ?  We  easily  pre 
dict  a  fair  future  to  each  new  candidate  who 
enters  the  lists,  but  we  are  frivolous  and  vola 
tile,  and  by  low  aims  and  ill  example  do  what 
we  can  to  defeat  this  hope.  Then  these  youths 
bring  us  a  rough  but  effectual  aid.  By  their 
unconcealed  dissatisfaction  they  expose  our  pov 
erty  and  the  insignificance  of  man  to  man.  A 
man  is  a  poor  limitary  benefactor.  He  ought 
to  be  a  shower  of  benefits — a  great  influence, 
which  should  never  let  his  brother  go,  but 
should  refresh  old  merits  continually  with  new 
ones ;  so  that  though  absent  he  should  never 
be  out  of  my  mind,  his  name  never  far  from . 
my  lips;  but  if  the  earth  should  open  at  my 
side,  or  my  last  hour  were  come,  his  name 
should  be  the  prayer  I  should  utter  to  the  Uni 
verse.  But  in  our  experience,  man  is  cheap  and 
friendship  wants  its  deep  sense.  We  affect  to 
dwell  with  our  friends  in  their  absence,  but  we 
do  not ;  when  deed,  word,  or  letter  comes  not, 
they  let  us  go.  These  exacting  children  adver 
tise  us  of  our  wants.  There  is  no  compliment, 
no  smooth  speech  with  them  ;  they  pay  you 
only  this  one  compliment,  of  insatiable  expec 
tation  ;  they  aspire,  they  severely  exact,  and  if 
they  only  stand  fast  in  this  watch-tower,  and 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        347 

persist  in  demanding  unto  the  end,  and  without 
end,  then  are  they  terrible  friends,  whereof  poet 
and  priest  cannot  choose  but  stand  in  awe  ;  and 
what  if  they  eat  clouds,  and  drink  wind,  they 
have  not  been  without  service  to  the  race  of 
man.1 

With  this  passion  for  what ,  is  great  and  ex 
traordinary,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at  that  they 
are  repelled  by  vulgarity  and  frivolity  in  people. 
They  say  to  themselves,  It  is  better  to  be  alone 
than  in  bad  company.  And  it  is  really  a  wish 
to  be  met,  —  the  wish  to  find  society  for  their 
hope  and  religion, —  which  prompts  them  to 
shun  what  is  called  society.  They  feel  that  they 
are  never  so  fit  for  friendship  as  when  they  have 
quitted  mankind  and  taken  themselves  to  friend. 
A  picture,  a  book9  a  favorite  spot  in  the  hills 
or  the  woods  which  they  can  people  with  the 
fair  and  worthy  creation  of  the  fancy,  can  give 
them  often  forms  so  vivid  that  these  for  the 
time  shall  seem  real,  and  society  the  illusion. 

But  their  solitary  and  fastidious  manners  not 
only  withdraw  them  from  the  conversation,  but 
from  the  labors  of  the  world  ;  they  are  not 
good  citizens,  not  good  members  of  society  ; 
unwillingly  they  bear  their  part  of  the  public 
and  private  burdens ;  they  do  not  willingly 


348        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

share  in  the  public  charities,  in  the  public  reli 
gious  rites,  in  the  enterprises  of  education,  of 
missions  foreign  and  domestic,  in  the  abolition 
of  the  slave-trade,  or  in  the  temperance  soci 
ety.  They  do  not  even  like  to  vote.  The  phi 
lanthropists  inquire  whether  Transcendentalism 
does  not  mean  sloth  :  they  had  as  lief  hear  that 
their  friend  is  dead,  as  that  he  is  a  Transcen- 
dentalist ;  for  then  is  he  paralyzed,  and  can 
never  do  anything  for  humanity.  What  right, 
cries  the  good  world,  has  the  man  of  genius  to 
retreat  from  work,  and  indulge  himself?  The 
popular  literary  creed  seems  to  be,  c  I  am  a  sub 
lime  genius  ;  I  ought  not  therefore  to  labor/ 
But  genius  is  the  power  to  labor  better  and 
more  availably.  Deserve  thy  genius  :  exalt  it. 
The  good,  the  illuminated,  sit  apart  from  the 
rest,  censuring  their  dulness  and  vices,  as  if  they 
thought  that  by  sitting  very  grand  in  their  chairs, 
the  very  brokers,  attorneys,  and  congressmen. ^ 
would  see  the  error  of  their  ways,  and  flock  to 
them.  But  the  good  and  wise  must  learn  to  act, 
and  carry  salvation  to  the  combatants  and  de 
magogues  in  the  dusty  arena  below. 

On  the  part  of  these  children  it  is  replied  that 
life  and  their  faculty  seem  to  them  gifts  too  rich 
to  be  squandered  on  such  trifles  as  you  propose 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST         349 

to  them.  What  you  call  your  fundamental 
institutions,  your  great  and  holy  causes,  seem 
to  them  great  abuses,  and,  when  nearly  seen, 
paltry  matters.  Each  (  cause  '  as  it  is  called,  — 
say  Abolition,  Temperance,  say  Calvinism,  or 
Unitarianism,  —  becomes  speedily  a  little  shop, 
where  the  article,  let  it  have  been  at  first  never 
so  subtle  and  ethereal,  is  now  made  up  into 
portable  and  convenient  cakes,  and  retailed  in 
small  quantities  to  suit  purchasers.  You  make 
very  free  use  of  these  words  '  great '  and  '  holy/ 
but  few  things  appear  to  them  such.  Few  per 
sons  have  any  magnificence  of  nature  to  inspire 
enthusiasm,  and  the  philanthropies  and  chari 
ties  have  a  certain  air  of  quackery.  As  to  the 
general  course  of  living,  and  the  daily  employ 
ments  of  men,  they  cannot  see  much  virtue  in 
these,  since  they  are  parts  of  this  vicious  circle ; 
and  as  no  great  ends  are  answered  by  the  men, 
there  is  nothing  noble  in  the  arts  by  which  they 
are  maintained.  Nay,  they  have  made  the  ex 
periment  and  found  that  from  the  liberal  pro 
fessions  to  the  coarsest  manual  labor,  and  from 
the  courtesies  of  the  academy  and  the  college 
to  the  conventions  of  the  cotillon-room  and  the 
morning  call,  there  is  a  spirit  of  cowardly  com 
promise  and  seeming  which  intimates  a  frightful 


350        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

skepticism,  a  life  without  love,  and  an  activity 
without  an  aim. 

Unless  the  action  is  necessary,  unless  it  is 
adequate,  I  do  not  wish  to  perform  it.  I  do  not 
wish  to  do  one  thing  but  once.1  I  do  not  love 
routine.  Once  possessed  of  the  principle,  it  is 
equally  easy  to  make  four  or  forty  thousand 
applications  of  it.  A  great  man  will  be  content 
to  have  indicated  in  any  the  slightest  manner 
his  perception  of  the  reigning  Idea  of  his  time, 
and  will  leave  to  those  who  like  it  the  multipli 
cation  of  examples.  When  he  has  hit  the  white, 
the  rest  may  shatter  the  target.  Every  thing  ad 
monishes  us  how  needlessly  long  life  is.  Every 
moment  of  a  hero  so  raises  and  cheers  us  that 
a  twelvemonth  is  an  age.  All  that  the  brave 
Xanthus  brings  home  from  his  wars  is  the  recol 
lection  that  at  the  storming  of  Samos,  "  in  the 
heat  of  the  battle,  Pericles  smiled  on  me,  and 
passed  on  to  another  detachment."  2  It  is  the 
quality  of  the  moment,  not  the  number  of  days, 
of  events,  or  of  actors,  that  imports. 

New,  we  confess,  and  by  no  means  happy,  is 
our  condition  :  if  you  want  the  aid  of  our  labor, 
we  ourselves  stand  in  greater  want  of  the  labor. 
We  are  miserable  with  inaction.  We  perish  of 
rest  and  rust :  but  we  do  not  like  your  work. 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        351 

c  Then/  says  the  world,  c  show  me  your  own/ 

'  We  have  none.' 

c  What  will  you  do,  then  ?  '  cries  the  world. 

(  We  will  wait/ 

c  How  long  ? ' 

c  Until  the  Universe  beckons  and  calls  us  to 
work/ 

c  But  whilst  you  wait,  you  grow  old  and  use 
less/ 

<  Be  it  so  :  I  can  sit  in  a  corner  and  perish 
(as  you  call  it),  but  I  will  not  move  until  I  have 
the  highest  command.  If  no  call  should  come 
for  years,  for  centuries,  then  I  know  that  the 
want  of  the  Universe  is  the  attestation  of  faith 
by  my  abstinence.  Your  virtuous  projects,  so 
called,  do  not  cheer  me.  I  know  that  which 
shall  come  will  cheer  me.  If  I  cannot  work,  at 
least  I  need  not  lie.  All  that  is  clearly  due  to 
day  is  not  to  lie.  In  other  places  other  men 
have  encountered  sharp  trials,  and  have  be 
haved  themselves  well.  The  martyrs  were  sawn 
asunder,  or  hung  alive  on  meat-hooks.  Cannot 
we  screw  our  courage  to  patience  and  truth,  and 
without  complaint,  or  even  with  good-humor, 
await  our  turn  of  action  in  the  Infinite  Coun 
sels  ?  ' 

But  to  come  a  little  closer  to  the  secret  of 


352        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

these  persons,  we  must  say  that  to  them  it 
seems  a  very  easy  matter  to  answer  the  objec 
tions  of  the  man  of  the  world,  but  not  so  easy 
to  dispose  of  the  doubts  and  objections  that  oc 
cur  to  themselves.  They  are  exercised  in  their 
own  spirit  with  queries  which  acquaint  them 
with  all  adversity,  and  with  the  trials  of  the 
bravest  heroes.  When  I  asked  them  concerning 
their  private  experience,  they  answered  some 
what  in  this  wise :  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
there  must  be  some  wide  difference  between 
my  faith  and  other  faith  ;  and  mine  is  a  certain 
brief  experience,  which  surprised  me  in  the  high 
way  or  in  the  market,  in  some  place,  at  some 
time,  —  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body, 
God  knoweth,  —  and  made  me  aware  that  I  had 
played  the  fool  with  fools  all  this  time,  but  that 
law  existed  for  me  and  for  all ;  that  to  me  be 
longed  trust,  a  child's  trust  and  obedience,  and 
the  worship  of  ideas,  and  I  should  never  be  fool 
more.  Well,  in  the  space  of  an  hour  probably, 
I  was  let  down  from  this  height ;  I  was  at  my 
old  tricks,  the  selfish  member  of  a  selfish  society. 
My  life  is  superficial,  takes  no  root  in  the  deep 
world  ;  I  ask,  When  shall  I  die  and  be  relieved 
of  the  responsibility  of  seeing  an  Universe  which 
I  do  not  use  ?  I  wish  to  exchange  this  flash- 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        353 

of-lightning  faith  for  continuous  daylight,  this 
fever-glow  for  a  benign  climate. 

These  two  states  of  thought  diverge  every 
moment,  and  stand  in  wild  contrast.  To  him 
who  looks  at  his  life  from  these  moments  of 
illumination,  it  will  seem  that  he  skulks  and 
plays  a  mean,  shiftless  and  subaltern  part  in  the 
world.  That  is  to  be  done  which  he  has  not 
skill  to  do,  or  to  be  said  which  others  can  say 
better,  and  he  lies  by,  or  occupies  his  hands 
with  some  plaything,  until  his  hour  comes 
again.  Much  of  our  reading,  much  of  our 
labor,  seems  mere  waiting  :  it  was  not  that  we 
were  born  for.  Any  other  could  do  it  as  well 
or  better.  So  little  skill  enters  into  these  works, 
so  little  do  they  mix  with  the  divine  life,  that 
it  really  signifies  little  what  we  do,  whether  we 
turn  a  grindstone,  or  ride,  or  run,  or  make  for 
tunes,  or  govern  the  state.  The  worst  feature 
of  this  double  consciousness  is,  that  the  two 
lives,  of  the  understanding  and  of  the  soul, 
which  we  lead,  really  show  very  little  relation 
to  each  other  ;  never  meet  and  measure  each 
other  :  one  prevails  now,  all  buzz  and  din  ;  and 
the  other  prevails  then,  all  infinitude  and  para 
dise  ;  and,  with  the  progress  of  life,  the  two  dis 
cover  no  greater  disposition  to  reconcile  them- 


354        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

selves.  Yet,  what  is  my  faith  ?  What  am  I  ? 
What  but  a  thought  of  serenity  and  indepen 
dence,  an  abode  in  the  deep  blue  sky  ?  Pres 
ently  the  clouds  shut  down  again  ;  yet  we  retain 
the  belief  that  this  petty  web  we  weave  will  at 
last  be  overshot  and  reticulated  with  veins  of 
the  blue,  and  that  the  moments  will  characterize 
the  days.  Patience,  then,  is  for  us,  is  it  not  ? 
Patience,  and  still  patience.  When  we  pass,  as 
presently  we  shall,  into  some  new  infinitude,  out 
of  this  Iceland  of  negations,  it  will  please  us  to 
reflect  that  though  we  had  few  virtues  or  conso 
lations,  we  bore  with  our  indigence,  nor  once 
strove  to  repair  it  with  hypocrisy  or  false  heat 
of  any  kind. 

But  this  class  are  not  sufficiently  characterized 
if  we  omit  to  add  that  they  are  lovers  and  wor 
shippers  of  Beauty.  In  the  eternal  trinity  of 
Truth,  Goodness,  and  Beauty,  each  in  its  per 
fection  including  the  three,  they  prefer  to  make 
Beauty  the  sign  and  head.1  Something  of  the 
same  taste  is  observable  in  all  the  moral  move 
ments  of  the  time,  in  the  religious  and  benevo 
lent  enterprises.  They  have  a  liberal,  even  an 
aesthetic  spirit.  A  reference  to  Beauty  in  action 
sounds,  to  be  sure,  a  little  hollow  and  ridiculous 
in  the  ears  of  the  old  church.  In  politics,  it  has 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        355 

often  sufficed,  when  they  treated  of  justice,  if 
they  kept  the  bounds  of  selfish  calculation.  If 
they  granted  restitution,  it  was  prudence  which 
granted  it.  But  the  justice  which  is  now  claimed 
for  the  black,  and  the  pauper,  and  the  drunkard, 
is  for  Beauty,  —  is  for  a  necessity  to  the  soul  of 
the  agent,  not  of  the  beneficiary.  I  say  this  is 
the  tendency,  not  yet  the  realization.  Our  virtue 
totters  and  trips,  does  not  yet  walk  firmly.  Its 
representatives  are  austere  ;  they  preach  and  de 
nounce  ;  their  rectitude  is  not  yet  a  grace.  They 
are  still  liable  to  that  slight  taint  of  burlesque 
which  in  our  strange  world  attaches  to  the  zealot. 
A  saint  should  be  as  dear  as  the  apple  of  the 
eye.  Yet  we  are  tempted  to  smile,  and  we  flee 
from  the  working  to  the  speculative  reformer, 
to  escape  that  same  slight  ridicule.  Alas  for 
these  days  of  derision  and  criticism  !  We  call  the 
Beautiful  the  highest,  because  it  appears  to  us 
the  golden  mean,  escaping  the  dowdiness  of  the 
good  and  the  heartlessness  of  the  true.  They 
are  lovers  of  nature  also,  and  find  an  indemnity 
in  the  inviolable  order  of  the  world  for  the  vio 
lated  order  and  grace  of  man. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  of  well- 
founded  objection  to  be  spoken  or  felt  against 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  this  class,  some  of 


356        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

whose  traits  we  have  selected  ;  no  doubt  they 
will  lay  themselves  open  to  criticism  and  to  lam 
poons,  and  as  ridiculous  stories  will  be  to  be 
told  of  them  as  of  any.  There  will  be  cant  and 
pretension  ;  there  will  be  subtilty  and  moon 
shine.  These  persons  are  of  unequal  strength, 
and  do  not  all  prosper.  They  complain  that 
everything  around  them  must  be  denied ;  and 
if  feeble,  it  takes  all  their  strength  to  deny,  be 
fore  they  can  begin  to  lead  their  own  life.1 
Grave  seniors  insist  on  their  respect  to  this  insti 
tution  and  that  usage ;  to  an  obsolete  history ; 
to  some  vocation,  or  college,  or  etiquette,  or 
beneficiary,  or  charity,  or  morning  or  evening 
call,  which  they  resist  as  what  does  not  concern 
them.  But  it  costs  such  sleepless  nights,  alien 
ations  and  misgivings,  —  they  have  so  many 
moods  about  it;  these  old  guardians  never 
change  their  minds ;  they  have  but  one  mood 
on  the  subject,  namely,  that  Antony  is  very  per 
verse,  —  that  it  is  quite  as  much  as  Antony  can 
do  to  assert  his  rights,  abstain  from  what  he 
thinks  foolish,  and  keep  his  temper.  He  cannot 
help  the  reaction  of  this  injustice  in  his  own 
mind.  He  is  braced-up  and  stilted ;  all  freedom 
and  flowing  genius,  all  sallies  of  wit  and  frolic 
nature  are  quite  out  of  the  question  ;  it  is  well 


THE  TRANSCENDENT ALIST        357 

if  he  can  keep  from  lying,  injustice,  and  sui 
cide.  This  is  no  time  for  gaiety  and  grace.  His 
strength  and  spirits  are  wasted  in  rejection. 
But  the  strong  spirits  overpower  those  around 
them  without  effort.  Their  thought  and  emo 
tion  comes  in  like  a  flood,  quite  withdraws  them 
from  all  notice  of  these  carping  critics;  they  sur 
render  themselves  with  glad  heart  to  the  hea 
venly  guide,  and  only  by  implication  reject  the 
clamorous  nonsense  of  the  hour.  Grave  seniors 
talk  to  the  deaf, — church  and  old  book  mumble 
and  ritualize  to  an  unheeding,  preoccupied  and 
advancing  mind,  and  thus  they  by  happiness  of 
greater  momentum  lose  no  time,  but  take  the 
right  road  at  first. 

But  all  these  of  whom  I  speak  are  not  pro 
ficients  ;  they  are  novices ;  they  only  show  the 
road  in  which  man  should  travel,  when  the  soul 
has  greater  health  and  prowess.  Yet  let  them 
feel  the  dignity  of  their  charge,  and  deserve  a 
larger  power.  Their  heart  is  the  ark  in  which 
the  fire  is  concealed  which  shall  burn  in  a  broader 
and  universal  flame.  Let  them  obey  the  Genius 
then  most  when  his  impulse  is  wildest ;  then 
most  when  he  seems  to  lead  to  uninhabitable 
deserts  of  thought  and  life;  for  the  path  which 
the  hero  travels  alone  is  the  highway  of  health 


358        THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

and  benefit  to  mankind.  What  is  the  privilege 
and  nobility  of  our  nature  but  its  persistency, 
through  its  power  to  attach  itself  to  what  is 
permanent  ? 

.  Society  also  has  its  duties  in  reference  to  this 
class,  and  must  behold  them  with  what  charity 
it  can.  Possibly  some  benefit  may  yet  accrue 
from  them  to  the  state.  In  our  Mechanics'  Fair, 
there  must  be  not  only  bridges,  ploughs,  car 
penters'  planes,  and  baking  troughs,  but  also 
some  few  finer  instruments,  —  rain-gauges,  ther 
mometers,  and  telescopes ;  and  in  society,  be 
sides  farmers,  sailors,  and  weavers,  there  must 
be  a  few  persons  of  purer  fire  kept  specially  as 
gauges  and  meters  of  character ;  persons  of  a 
fine,  detecting  instinct,  who  note  the  smallest  ac 
cumulations  of  wit  and  feeling  in  the  bystander. 
Perhaps  too  there  might  be  room  for  the  ex 
citers  and  monitors  ;  collectors  of  the  heavenly 
spark,  with  power  to  convey  the  electricity  to 
others.  Or,  as  the  storm-tossed  vessel  at  sea 
speaks  the  frigate  or  c  line  packet '  to  learn  its 
longitude,  so  it  may  not  be  without  its  advan 
tage  that  we  should  now  and  then  encounter 
rare  and  gifted  men,  to  compare  the  points  of 
our  spiritual  compass,  and  verify  our  bearings 
from  superior  chronometers.1 


THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST        359 

Amidst  the  downward  tendency  and  prone- 
ness  of  things,  when  every  voice  is  raised  for  a 
new  road  or  another  statute  or  a  subscription 
of  stock ;  for  an  improvement  in  dress,  or  in 
dentistry ;  for  a  new  house  or  a  larger  business ; 
for  a  political  party,  or  the  division  of  an  estate  ; 
—  will  you  not  tolerate  one  or  two  solitary  voices 
in  the  land,  speaking  for  thoughts  and  princi 
ples  not  marketable  or  perishable  ?  Soon  these 
improvements  and  mechanical  inventions  will 
be  superseded;  these  modes  of  living  lost  out 
of  memory;  these  cities  rotted,  ruined  by  war, 
by  new  inventions,  by  new  seats  of  trade,  or  . 
the  geologic  changes  :  —  all  gone,  like  the  shells 
which  sprinkle  the  sea-beach  with  a  white  colony 
to-day,  forever  renewed  to  be  forever  destroyed. 
But  the  thoughts  which  these  few  hermits  strove 
to  proclaim  by  silence  as  well  as  by  speech,  not 
only  by  what  they  did,  but  by  what  they  for 
bore  to  do,  shall  abide  in  beauty  and  strength, 
to  reorganize  themselves  in  nature,  to  invest 
themselves  anew  in  other,  perhaps  higher  en 
dowed  and  happier  mixed  clay  than  ours,  in 
fuller  union  with  the  surrounding  system.1 


THE   YOUNG   AMERICAN 

LECTURE   READ    BEFORE   THE   MERCANTILE 
LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION,   BOSTON, 
FEBRUARY  7,  1844. 


THE    YOUNG    AMERICAN 

GENTLEMEN  : 

IT  is  remarkable  that  our  people  have  their 
intellectual  culture  from  one  country  and 
their  duties  from  another.1  This  false  state  of 
things  is  newly  in  a  way  to  be  corrected.  Amer 
ica  is  beginning  to  assert  herself  to  the  senses  and 
to  the  imagination  of  her  children,  and  Europe 
is  receding  in  the  same  degree.  This  their  re 
action  on  education  gives  a  new  importance  to 
the  internal  improvements  and  to  the  politics  of 
the  country.  Who  has  not  been  stimulated  to 
reflection  by  the  facilities  now  in  progress  of 
construction  for  travel  and  the  transportation 
of  goods  in  the  United  States?2 

This  rage  of  road  building  is  beneficent  for 
America,  where  vast  distance  is  so  main  a  con 
sideration  in  our  domestic  politics  and  trade, 
inasmuch  as  the  great  political  promise  of  the 
invention  is  to  hold  the  Union  staunch,  whose 
days  seemed  already  numbered  by  the  mere 
inconvenience  of  transporting  representatives, 
judges,  and  officers  across  such  tedious  distances 
of  land  and  water.  Not  only  is  distance  annihi 
lated,  but  when,  as  now,  the  locomotive  and  the 


364  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

steamboat,  like  enormous  shuttles,  shoot  every 
day  across  the  thousand  various  threads  of  na 
tional  descent  and  employment  and  bind  them 
fast  in  one  web,  an  hourly  assimilation  goes  for 
ward,  and  there  is  no  danger  that  local  peculiar 
ities  and  hostilities  should  be  preserved.1 

i.  But  I  hasten  to  speak  of  the  utility  of  these 
improvements  in  creating  an  American  senti 
ment.  An  unlooked-for  consequence  of  the  rail 
road  is  the  increased  acquaintance  it  has  given 
the  American  people  with  the  boundless  re 
sources  of  their  own  soil.  If  this  invention  has 
reduced  England  to  a  third  of  its  size,  by  bring 
ing  people  so  much  nearer,  in  this  country  it  has 
given  a  new  celerity  to  time,  or  anticipated  by 
fifty  years  the  planting  of  tracts  of  land,  the 
choice  of  water  privileges,  the  working  of  mines, 
and  other  natural  advantages.  Railroad  iron  is 
a  magician's  rod,  in  its  power  to  evoke  the  sleep 
ing  energies  of  land  and  water. 

The  railroad  is  but  one  arrow  in  our  quiver, 
though  it  has  great  value  as  a  sort  of  yard-stick 
and  surveyor's  line.  The  bountiful  continent  is 
ours,  state  on  state,  and  territory  on  territory,  to 
the  waves  of  the  Pacific  sea  ; 

"  Our  garden  is  the  immeasurable  earth, 

The  heaven's  blue  pillars  are  Medea's  house."  2 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  365 

The  task  of  surveying,  planting,  and  building 
upon  this  immense  tract  requires  an  education 
and  a  sentiment  commensurate  thereto.  A  con 
sciousness  of  this  fact  is  beginning  to  take  the 
place  of  the  purely  trading  spirit  and  education 
which  sprang  up  whilst  all  the  population  lived 
on  the  fringe  of  sea-coast.  And  even  on  the 
coast,  prudent  men  have  begun  to  see  that  every 
American  should  be  educated  with  a  view  to  the 
values  of  land.  The  arts  of  engineering  and  of 
architecture  are  studied  ;  scientific  agriculture  is 
an  object  of  growing  attention;  the  mineral  riches 
are  explored ;  limestone,  coal,  slate,  and  iron ; 
and  the  value  of  timber-lands  is  enhanced. 

Columbus  alleged  as  a  reason  for  seeking  a 
continent  in  the  West,  that  the  harmony  of  na 
ture  required  a  great  tract  of  land  in  the  western 
hemisphere,  to  balance  the  known  extent  of  land 
in  the  eastern;  and  it  now  appears  that  we  must 
estimate  the  native  values  of  this  broad  region 
to  redress  the  balance  of  our  own  judgments, 
and  appreciate  the  advantages  opened  to  the 
human  rac«  in  this  country  which  is  our  fortu 
nate  home.  The  land  is  the  appointed  remedy 
for  whatever  is  false  and  fantastic  in  our  culture. 
The  continent  we  inhabit  is  to  be  physic  and 
food  for  our  mind,  as  well  as  our  body.  The 


366  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

land,  with  its  tranquillizing,  sanative  influences, 
is  to  repair  the  errors  of  a  scholastic  and  tradi 
tional  education,  and  bring  us  into  just  relations 
with  men  and  things.1 

The  habit  of  living  in  the  presence  of  these 
invitations  of  natural  wealth  is  not  inoperative ; 
and  this  habit,  combined  with  the  moral  senti 
ment  which,  in  the  recent  years,  has  interrogated 
every  institution,  usage,  and  law,  has  naturally 
given  a  strong  direction  to  the  wishes  and  aims 
of  active  young  men,  to  withdraw  from  cities  and 
cultivate  the  soil.  This  inclination  has  appeared 
in  the  most  unlooked-for  quarters,  in  men  sup 
posed  to  be  absorbed  in  business,  and  in  those 
connected  with  the  liberal  professions.2  And 
since  the  walks  of  trade  were  crowded,  whilst 
that  of  agriculture  cannot  easily  be,  inasmuch 
as  the  farmer  who  is  not  wanted  by  others  can 
yet  grow  his  own  bread,  whilst  the  manufacturer 
or  the  trader,  who  is  not  wanted,  cannot,  —  this 
seemed  a  happy  tendency.  For  beside  all  the 
moral  benefit  which  we  may  expect  from  the 
farmer's  profession,  when  a  man  enters  it  consid 
erately  ;  this  promised  the  conquering  of  the  soil, 
plenty,  and  beyond  this  the  adorning  of  the  coun 
try  with  every  advantage  and  ornament  which 
labor,  ingenuity,  and  arTection  for  a  man's  home 
could  suggest. 


THE  YOUNG  AiMERICAN  367 

Meantime,  with  cheap  land,  and  the  pacific 
disposition  of  the  people,  everything  invites  to 
the  arts  of  agriculture,  of  gardening,  and  domes 
tic  architecture.  Public  gardens,  on  the  scale  of 
such  plantations  in  Europe  and  Asia,  are  now 
unknown  to  us.  There  is  no  feature  of  the  old 
countries  that  strikes  an  American  with  more 
agreeable  surprise  than  the  beautiful  gardens  of 
Europe ;  such  as  the  Boboli  in  Florence,  the 
Villa  Borghese  in  Rome,  the  Villa  d'  Este1  in 
Tivoli,  the  gardens  at  Munich  and  at  Frankfort 
on  the  Main  :  works  easily  imitated  here,  and 
which  might  well  make  the  land  dear  to  the  cit 
izen,  and  inflame  patriotism.  It  is  the  fine  art 
which  is  left  for  us,  now  that  sculpture,  painting, 
and  religious  and  civil  architecture  have  become 
effete,  and  have  passed  into  second  childhood. 
We  have  twenty  degrees  of  latitude  wherein  to 
choose  a  seat,  and  the  new  modes  of  travelling 
enlarge  the  opportunity  of  selection,  by  making 
it  easy  to  cultivate  very  distant  tracts  and  yet 
remain  in  strict  intercourse  with  the  centres 
of  trade  and  population.  And  the  whole  force  of 
all  the  arts  goes  to  facilitate  the  decoration  of 
lands  and  dwellings.  A  garden  has  this  advan 
tage,  that  it  makes  it  indifferent  where  you  live. 
A  well-laid  garden  makes  the  face  of  the  country 


368  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

of  no  account;  let  that  be  low  or  high,  grand  or 
mean,  you  have  made  a  beautiful  abode  worthy 
of  man.  If  the  landscape  is  pleasing,  the  garden 
shows  it, — if  tame,  it  excludes  it.  A  little  grove, 
which  any  farmer  can  find  or  cause  to  grow  near 
his  house,  will  in  a  few  years  make  cataracts  and 
chains  of  mountains  quite  unnecessary  to  his 
scenery ;  and  he  is  so  contented  with  his  alleys, 
woodlands,  orchards  and  river,  that  Niagara,  and 
the  Notch  of  the  White  Hills,  and  Nantasket 
Beach,  are  superfluities.1  And  yet  the  selection 
of  a  fit  house-lot  has  the  same  advantage  over 
an  indifferent  one,  as  the  selection  to  a  given 
employment  of  a  man  who  has  a  genius  for  that 
work.  In  the  last  case  the  culture  of  years  will 
never  make  the  most  painstaking  apprentice  his 
equal :  no  more  will  gardening  give  the  advan 
tage  of  a  happy  site  to  a  house  in  a  hole  or  on  a 
pinnacle.  In  America  we  have  hitherto  little  to 
boast  in  this  kind.  The  cities  drain  the  country 
of  the  best  part  of  its  population :  the  flower  of 
the  youth,  of  both  sexes,  goes  into  the  towns, 
and  the  country  is  cultivated  by  a  so  much  infe 
rior  class.2  The  land,  —  travel  a  whole  day  to 
gether, —  looks  poverty-stricken,  and  the  build 
ings  plain  and  poor.  In  Europe,  where  society 
has  an  aristocratic  structure,  the  land  is  full  of 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  369 

men  of  the  best  stock  and  the  best  culture, 
whose  interest  and  pride  it  is  to  remain  half  the 
year  on  their  estates,  and  to  fill  them  with  every 
convenience  and  ornament.  Of  course  these 
make  model  farms,  and  model  architecture,  and 
are  a  constant  education  to  the  eye  of  the  sur 
rounding  population.  Whatever  events  in  pro 
gress  shall  go  to  disgust  men  with  cities  and 
infuse  into  them  the  passion  for  country  life  and 
country  pleasures,  will  render  a  service  to  the 
whole  face  of  this  continent,  and  will  further  the 
most  poetic  of  all  the  occupations  of  real  life, 
the  bringing  out  by  art  the  native  but  hidden 
graces  of  the  landscape. 

I  Iqok^gn.suchr-improvement^-al&o  as  directly 
tending  to  endear  the  Jand_._tQ_jdie_Jjihabitant. 
Any  relation  to  the  land,  the  habit  of  tilling  it, 
or  mining  iver~  even  hunting  on  it,  generates 
the  feeling  of  patriotism.  He  who  keeps  shop 
on  it,  or  he  who  merely  uses  it  as  a  support  to 
his  desk  and  ledger,  or  to  his  manufactory,  values 
it  less.  The  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  this 
country  live  by  the  land,  and  carry  its  quality  in 
their  manners  and  opinions.1  We  in  the  Atlan 
tic  states,  by  position,  have  been  commercial, 
and  have,  as  I  said,  imbibed  easily  an  European 
culture.  Luckily  for  us,  now  that  steam  has  nar- 


370  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

rowed  the  Atlantic  to  a  strait,  the  nervous,  rocky 
West  is  intruding  a  new  and  continental  element 
into  the  national  mind,  and  we  shall  yet  have  an 
American  genius.  How  much  better  when  the 
whole  land  is  a  garden,  and  the  people  have 
grown  up  in  the  bowers  of  a  paradise.  Without 
looking  then  to  those  extraordinary  social  in 
fluences  which  are  now  acting  in  precisely  this 
direction,  but  only  at  what  is  inevitably  doing 
around  us,  I  think  we  must  regard  the  land  as 
a  commanding  and  increasing  power  on  the  citi 
zen,  the  sanative  and  Americanizing  influence, 
which  promises  to  disclose  new  virtues  for  ages 
to  come. 

2.  In  the  second  place,  the  uprise  and  cul 
mination  of  the  new  and  anti-feudal  power  of 
Commerce  is  the  political  fact  of  most  signifi 
cance  to  the  American  at  this  hour. 

We  cannot  look  on  the  freedom  of  this  coun 
try,  in  connexion  with  its  youth,  without  a  pre 
sentiment  that  here  shall  laws  and  institutions 
exist  on  some  scale  of  proportion  to  the  majesty 
of  nature.  To  men  legislating  for  the  area  be 
twixt  the  two  oceans,  betwixt  the  snows  and  the 
tropics,  somewhat  of  the  gravity  of  nature  will 
infuse  itself  into  the  code.  A  heterogeneous  pop 
ulation  crowding  on  all  ships  from  all  corners  of 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  371 

the  world  to  the  great  gates  of  North  America, 
namely  Boston,  New  York,  and  New  Orleans, 
and  thence  proceeding  inward  to  the  prairie  and 
the  mountains,  and  quickly  contributing  their 
private  thought  to  the  public  opinion,  their  toll 
to  the  treasury,  and  their  vote  to  the  election, 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  legislation  of  this 
country  should  become  more  catholic  and  cos 
mopolitan  than  that  of  any  other.  It  seems  so 
easy  for  America  to  inspire  and  express  the  most 
expansive  and  humane  spirit ;  new-born,  free, 
healthful,  strong,  the  land  of  the  laborer,  of  the 
democrat,  of  the  philanthropist,  of  the  believer, 
of  the  saint,  she  should  speak  for  the  human 
race.  It  is  the  country  of  the  Future.  From 
Washington,  proverbially  f  the  city  of  magnifi 
cent  distances,'  through  all  its  cities,  states,  and 
territories,  it  is  a  country  of  beginnings,  of  pro 
jects,  of  designs,  of  expectations.1 

Gentlemen,  there  is  a  sublime  and  friendly 
Destiny  by  which  the  human  race  is  guided,  — 
the  race  never  dying,  the  individual  never  spared, 
—  to  results  affecting  masses  and  ages.  Men  are 
narrow  and  selfish,  but  the  Genius  or  Destiny 
is  not  narrow,  but  beneficent.  It  is  not  discov 
ered  in  their  calculated  and  voluntary  activity, 
but  in  what  befalls,  with  or  without  their  design. 


372  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

Only  what  is  inevitable  interests  us,  and  it  turns 
out  that  love  and  good  are  inevitable,  and  in  the 
course  of  things.  That  Genius  has  infused  itself 
into  nature.  It  indicates  itself  by  a  small  excess 
of  good,  a  small  balance  in  brute  facts  always 
favoreble  to  the  side  of  reason.  All  the  facts  in 
any  part  of  nature  shall  be  tabulated  and  the  re 
sults  shall  indicate  the  same  security  and  benefit; 
so  slight  as  to  be  hardly  observable,  and  yet  it  is 
there.1  The  sphere  is  flattened  at  the  poles  and 
swelled  at  the  equator ;  a  form  flowing  necessarily 
from  the  fluid  state,  yet  the  form,  the  mathe 
matician  assures  us,  required  to  prevent  the  pro 
tuberances  of  the  continent,  or  even  of  lesser 
mountains  cast  up  at  any  time  by  earthquakes, 
from  continually  deranging  the  axis  of  the  earth. 
The  census  of  the  population  is  found  to  kee,p 
an  invariable  equality  in  the  sexes,  with  a  trifling 
predominance  in  favor  of  the  male,  as  if  to  coun 
terbalance  the  necessarily  increased  exposure  of 
male  life  in  war,  navigation,  and  other  accidents. 
Remark  the  unceasing  effort  throughout  nature 
at  somewhat  better  than  the  actual  creatures : 
amelioration  in  nature^  which  alone  permits  and 
authorizes  amelioration  in  mankind.2  The  popu 
lation  of  the  world  is  a  conditional  population; 
these  are  not  the  best,  but  the  best  that  could 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  373 

live  in  the  existing  state  of  soils,  gases,  animals 
and  morals :  the  best  that  could  yet  live  ;  there 
shall  be  a  better,  please  God.  This  Genius  or 
Destiny  is  of  the  sternest  administration,  though 
rumors  exist  of  its  secret  tenderness.  It  may  be 
styled  a  cruel  kindness,  serving  the  whole  even 
to  the  ruin  of  the  member ;  a  terrible  communist, 
reserving  all  profits  to  the  community,  without 
dividend  to  individuals.  Its  law  is,  you  shall 
have  everything  as  a  member,  nothing  to  your 
self.  For  Nature  is  the  noblest  engineer,  yet 
uses  a  grinding  economy,  working  up  all  that 
is  wasted  to-day  into  to-morrow's  creation  ;  — 
not  a  superfluous  grain  of  sand,  for  all  the  osten 
tation  she  makes  of  expense  and  public  works. 
It  is  because  Nature  thus  saves  and  uses,  labor 
ing  for  the  general,  that  we  poor  particulars  are 
so  crushed  and  straitened,  and  find  it  so  hard 
to  live.  She  flung  us  out  in  her  plenty,  but  we 
cannot  shed  a  hair  or  a  paring  of  a  nail  but  in 
stantly  she  snatches  at  the  shred  and  appropri 
ates  it  to  the  general  stock.  Our  condition  is 
like  that  of  the  poor  wolves:  if  one  of  the  flock 
wound  himself  or  so  much  as  limp,  the  rest  eat 
him  up  incontinently.1 

That  serene  Power  interposes  the  check  upon 
the  caprices  and  officiousness  of  our  wills.    Its 


374  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

charity  is  not  our  chanty.  One  of  its  agents  is 
our  will,  but  that  which  expresses  itself  in  our 
will  is  stronger  than  our  will.  We  are  very  for 
ward  to  help  it,  but  it  will  not  be  accelerated.  It 
resists  our  meddling,  eleemosynary  contrivances. 
We  devise  sumptuary  and  relief  laws,  but  the 
principle  of  population  is  always  reducing  wages 
to  the  lowest  pittance  on  which  human  life  can  be 
sustained.  We  legislate  against  forestalling  and 
monopoly ;  we  would  have  a  common  granary 
for  the  poor  ;  but  the  selfishness  which  hoards 
the  corn  for  high  prices  is  the  preventive  of 
famine ;  and  the  law  of  self-preservation  is  surer 
policy  than  any  legislation  can  be.  We  con 
coct  eleemosynary  systems,  and  it  turns  out 
that  our  charity  increases  pauperism.  We  inflate 
our  paper  currency,  we  repair  commerce  with 
unlimited  credit,  and  are  presently  visited  with 
unlimited  bankruptcy. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  existing  generation 
are  conspiring  with  a  beneficence  which  in  its 
working  for  coming  generations,  sacrifices  the 
passing  one  ;  which  infatuates  the  most  selfish 
men  to  act  against  their  private  interest  for  the 
public  welfare.  We  build  railroads,  we  know 
not  for  what  or  for  whom  ;  but  one  thing  is 
certain,  that  we  who  build  will  receive  the  very 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  375 

smallest  share  of  benefit.  Benefit  will  accrue, 
they  are  essential  to  the  country,  but  that  will 
be  felt  not  until  we  are  no  longer  countrymen. 
We  do  the  like  in  all  matters  :  — 

"  Man's  heart  the  Almighty  to  the  Future  set 
By  secret  and  inviolable  springs." 

We  plant  trees,  we  build  stone  houses,  we  re 
deem  the  waste,  we  make  prospective  laws,  we 
found  colleges  and  hospitals,  for  remote  genera 
tions.  We  should  be  mortified  to  learn  that  the 
little  benefit  we  chanced  in  our  own  persons  to 
receive  was  the  utmost  they  would  yield. 

The  history  of  commerce  is  the  record  of  this 
beneficenrTtendency.  The  patriarchal  form  of 
government  readily  becomes  despotic,  as  each 
person  may  see  in  his  own  family.  Fathers  wish 
to  be  fathers  of  the  minds  of  their  children,  and 
behold  with  impatience  a  new  character  and  way 
of  thinking  presuming  to  show  itself  in  their 
own  son  or  daughter.  This  feeling,  which  all 
their  love  and  pride  in  the  powers  of  their  chil 
dren  cannot  subdue,  becomes  petulance  and 
tyranny  when  the  head  of  the  clan,  the  emperor 
of  an  empire,  deals  with  the  same  difference 
of  opinion  in  his  subjects.  Difference  of  opin 
ion  is  the  one  crime  which  kings  never  forgive. 
An  empire  is  an  immense  egotism.  "  I  am  the 


376  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

State,"  said  the  French  Louis.  When  a  French 
ambassador  mentioned  to  Paul  of  Russia  that 
a  man  of  consequence  in  St.  Petersburg  was 
interesting  himself  in  some  matter,  the  Czar  in 
terrupted  him,  —  "  There  is  no  man  of  conse 
quence  in  this  empire  but  he  with  whom  I  am 
actually  speaking  ;  and  so  long  only  as  I  am 
speaking  to  him  is  he  of  any  consequence." 
And  the  Emperor  Nicholas  is  reported  to  have 
said  to  his  council,  "  The  age  is  embarrassed 
with  new  opinions ;  rely  on  me,  gentlemen,  I 
shall  oppose  an  iron  will  to  the  progress  of 
liberal  opinions." 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  patriarchal  or  family 
management  gets  to  be  rather  troublesome  to 
all  but  the  papa ;  the  sceptre  comes  to  be  a 
crow-bar.  And  this  unpleasant  egotism,  Feudal 
ism  opposes  and  finally  destroys.  The  king  is 
compelled  to  call  in  the  aid  of  his  brothers  and 
cousins  and  remote  relations,  to  help  him  keep 
his  overgrown  house  in  order  ;  and  this  club  of 
noblemen  always  come  at  last  to  have  a  will  of 
their  own  ;  they  combine  to  brave  the  sovereign, 
and  call  in  the  aid  of  the  people.  Each  chief 
attaches  as  many  followers  as  he  can,  by  kind 
ness,  maintenance,  and  gifts  ;  and  as  long  as 
war  lasts,  the  nobles,  who  must  be  soldiers,  rule 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  377 

very  well.  But  when  peace  comes,  the  nobles 
prove  very  whimsical  and  uncomfortable  mas 
ters  ;  their  frolics  turn  out  to  be  insulting  and 
degrading  to  the  commoner.  Feudalism  grew 
to  be  a  bandit  and  brigand. 

Meantime  Trade  had  begun  to  appear:  Trade, 
a  plant  which  grows  wherever  there  is  peace,  as 
soon  as  there  is  peace,  and  as  long  as  there  is 
peace.  The  luxury  and  necessity  of  the  noble 
fostered  it.  And  as  quickly  as  men  go  to  foreign 
parts  in  ships  or  caravans,  a  new  order  of  things 
springs  up;  new  command  takes  place,  new 
servants  and  new  masters.  Their  information, 
their  wealth,  their  correspondence,  have  made 
them  quite  other  men  than  left  their  native 
shore.  They  are  nobles  now,  and  by  another 
patent  than  the  king's.  Feudalism  had  been 
good,  had  broken  the  power  of  the  kings,  and 
had  some  good  traits  of  its  own  ;  but  it  had 
grown  mischievous,  it  was  time  for  it  to  die,  and 
as  they  say  of  dying  people,  all  its  faults  came 
out.  Trade  was  the  strong  man  that  broke  it 
down  and  raised  a  new  and  unknown  power  in 
its  place.  It  is  a  new  agent  in  the  world,  and 
one  of  great  function;  it  is  a  very  intellectual 
force.  This  displaces  physical  strength,  and 
instals  computation,  combination,  information, 


378  THE  YOUNG  AiMERICAN 

science,  in  its  room.  It  calls  out  all  force  of 
a  certain  kind  that  slumbered  in  the  former 
dynasties.  It  is  now  in  the  midst  of  its  career. 
Feudalism  is  not  ended  yet.  Our  governments 
still  partake  largely  of  that  element.  Trade  goes 
to  make  the  governments  insignificant,  and  to 
bring  every  kind  of  faculty  of  every  individual 
that  can  in  any  manner  serve  any  person,  on 
sale.  Instead  of  a  huge  Army  and  Navy  and 
Executive  Departments,  it  converts  Govern 
ment  into  an  Intelligence-Office,  where  every 
man  may  find  what  he  wishes  to  buy,  and  ex 
pose  what  he  has  to  sell ;  not  only  produce  and 
manufactures,  but  art,  skill,  and  intellectual  and 
moral  values.  This  is  the  good  and  this  the  evil 
of  trade,  that  it  would  put  everything  into  mar 
ket;  talent,  beauty,  virtue,  and  man  himself. 

The  philosopher  and  lover  of  man  have  much 
harm  to  say  of  trade  ;  but  the  historian  will  see 
that  trade  was  the  principle  of  Liberty  ;  that 
trade  planted  America  and  destroyed  Feudal 
ism  ;  that  it  makes  peace  and  keeps  peace,  and 
it  will  abolish  slavery.  We  complain  of  its  op 
pression  of  the  poor,  and  of  its  building  up  a 
new  aristocracy  on  the  ruins  of  the  aristocracy 
it  destroyed.  But  the  aristocracy  of  trade  has 
no  permanence,  is  not  entailed,  was  the  result 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  379 

of  toil  and  talent,  the  result  of  merit  of  some 
kind,  and  is  continually  falling,  like  the  waves 
of  the  sea,  before  new  claims  of  the  same  sort. 
Trade  is  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  that 
friendly  Power  which  works  for  us  in  our  own 
despite.  We  design  it  thus  and  thus  ;  it  turns 
out  otherwise  and  far  better.  This  beneficent 
tendency,  omnipotent  without  violence,  exists 
and  works.  Every  line  of  history  inspires  a 
confidence  that  we  shall  not  go  far  wrong ;  that 
things  mend.  That  is  the  moral  of  all  we  learn, 
that  it  warrants  Hope,  the  prolific  mother  of 
reforms.  Our  part  is  plainly  not  to  throw  our 
selves  across  the  track,  to  block  improvement 
and  sit  till  we  are  stone,  but  to  watch  the  uprise 
of  successive  mornings  and  to  conspire  with  the 
new  works  of  new  days.1  Government  has  been 
a  fossil ;  it  should  be  a  plant.  I  conceive  that 
the  office  of  statute  law  should  be  to  express 
and  not  to  impede  the  mind  of  mankind.  New 
thoughts,  new  things.  Trade  was  one  instru 
ment,  but  Trade  is  also  but  for  a  time,  and 
must  give  way  to  somewhat  broader  and  better, 
whose  signs  are  already  dawning  in  the  sky. 

3.  I^ass_to^s2eak^^f^he_ signs  of  that  which 
is  the  sequel  of  trade. 

In  consequence  of  the  revolution  in  the  state 


380  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

of  society  wrought  by  trade,  Government  in 
our  times  is  beginning  to  wear  a  clumsy  and 
cumbrous  appearance.  We  have  already  seen 
our  way  to  shorter  methods.  The  time  is  full 
of  good  signs.  Some  of  them  shall  ripen  to 
fruit.  All  this  beneficent  socialism  is  a  friendly 
omen,  and  the  swelling  cry  of  voices  for  the 
education  of  the  people  indicates  that  Govern 
ment  has  other  offices  than  those  of  banker  and 
executioner.  Witness  the  new  movements  in 
the  civilized  world,  the  Communism  of  France, 
Germany, and  Switzerland;  the  Trades'  Unions, 
the  English  League  against  the  Corn  Laws  ; 
and  the  whole  Industrial  Statistics,  so  called.  In 
Paris,  the  blouse,  the  badge  of  the  operative, 
has  begun  to  make  its  appearance  in  the  salons. 
Witness  too  the  spectacle  of  three  Communi 
ties  which  have  within  a  very  short  time  sprung 
up  within  this  Commonwealth,  besides  several 
others  undertaken  by  citizens  of  Massachusetts 
within  the  territory  of  other  States.1  These  pro 
ceeded  from  a  variety  of  motives,  from  an  im 
patience  of  many  usages  in  common  life,  from 
a  wish  for  greater  freedom  than  the  manners 
and  opinions  of  society  permitted,  but  in  great 
part  from  a  feeling  that  the  true  offices  of  the 
State,  the  State  had  let  fall  to  the  ground  ;  that 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  381 

in  the  scramble  of  parties  for  the  public  purse, 
the  main  duties  of  government  were  omitted, 
—  the  duty  to  instruct  the  ignorant,  to  supply 
the  poor  with  work  and  with  good  guidance. 
These  communists  preferred  the  agricultural 
life  as  the  most  favorable  condition  for  human 
culture ;  but  they  thought  that  the  farm,  as  we 
manage  it,  did  not  satisfy  the  right  ambition 
of  man.  The  farmer,  after  sacrificing  pleasure, 
taste,  freedom,  thought,  love,  to  his  work,  turns 
out  often  a  bankrupt,  like  the  merchant.  This 
result  might  well  seem  astounding.  All  this 
drudgery,  from  cock  -  crowing  to  starlight,  for 
all  these  years,  to  end  in  mortgages  and  the 
auctioneer's  flag,  and  removing  from  bad  to 
worse.  It  is  time  to  have  the  thing  looked  into, 
and  with  a  sifting  criticism  ascertained  who  is 
the  fool.  It  seemed  a  great  deal  worse,  because 
the  farmer  is  living  in  the  same  town  with  men 
who  pretend  to  know  exactly  what  he  wants. 
On  one  side  is  agricultural  chemistry,  coolly 
exposing  the  nonsense  of  our  spendthrift  agri 
culture  and  ruinous  expense  of  manures,  and 
offering,  by  means  of  a  teaspoonful  of  artificial 
guano,  to  turn  a  sandbank  into  corn  ;  and  on 
the  other,  the  farmer,  not  only  eager  for  the  in 
formation,  but  with  bad  crops  and  in  debt  and 


382  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

bankruptcy,  for  want  of  it.  Here  are  Etzlers 
and  mechanical  projectors.,  who,  with  the  Fou- 
rierists,  undoubtingly  affirm  that  the  smallest 
union  would  make  every  man  rich  ;  —  and,  on 
the  other  side,  a  multitude  of  poor  men  and  wo 
men  seeking  work,  and  who  cannot  find  enough 
to  pay  their  board.  The  science  is  confident, 
and  surely  the  poverty  is  real.  If  any  means 
could  be  found  to  bring  these  two  together ! 

This  was  one  design  of  the  projectors  of  the 
Associations  which  are  now  making  their  first 
feeble  experiments.  They  were  founded  in  love 
and  in  labor.  They  proposed,  as  you  know, 
that  all  men  should  take  a  part  in  the  manual 
toil,  and  proposed  to  amend  the  condition  of 
men  by  substituting  harmonious  for  hostile  in 
dustry.  It  was  a  noble  thought  of  Fourier, 
which  gives  a  favorable  idea  of  his  system,  to 
distinguish  in  his  Phalanx  a  class  as  the  Sacred 
Band,  by  whom  whatever  duties  were  disagree 
able  and  likely  to  be  omitted,  were  to  be  as 
sumed.1 

At  least  an  economical  success  seemed  cer 
tain  for  the  enterprise,  and  that  agricultural  as 
sociation  must,  sooner  or  later,  fix  the  price  of 
bread,  and  drive  single  farmers  into  association 
in  self-defence  ;  as  the  great  commercial  and 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  383 

manufacturing  companies  had  already  done. 
The  Community  is  only  the  continuation  of 
the  same  movement  which  made  the  joint-stock 
companies  for  manufactures,  mining,  insurance., 
banking,  and  so  forth.  It  has  turned  out  cheaper 
to  make  calico  by  companies;  and  it  is  proposed 
to  plant  corn  and  to  bake  bread  by  companies. 
Undoubtedly,  abundant  mistakes  will  be  made 
by  these  first  adventurers,  which  will  draw  rid 
icule  on  their  schemes.  I  think  for  example 
that  they  exaggerate  the  importance  of  a  favorite 
project  of  theirs,  that  of  paying  talent  and  labor 
at  one  rate,  paying  all  sorts  of  service  at  one 
rate,  say  ten  cents  the  hour.  They  have  paid 
it  so  ;  but  not  an  instant  would  a  dime  remain 
a  dime.  In  one  hand  it  became  an  eagle  as  it 
fell,  and  in  another  hand  a  copper  cent.  For 
the  whole  value  of  the  dime  is  in  knowing  what 
to  do  with  it.  One  man  buys  with  it  a  land-title 
of  an  Indian,  and  makes  his  posterity  princes  ; 
or  buys  corn  enough  to  feed  the  world  ;  or  pen, 
ink,  and  paper,  or  a  painter's  brush,  by  which 
he  can  communicate  himself  to  the  human  race 
as  if  he  were  fire  ;  and  the  other  buys  barley 
candy.  Money  is  of  no  value  ;  it  cannot  spend 
itself.  All  depends  on  the  skill  of  the  spender. 
Whether  too  the  objection  almost  universally 


384  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

felt  by  such  women  in  the  community  as  were 
mothers,  to  an  associate  life,  to  a  common  table, 
and  a  common  nursery,  etc.,  setting  a  higher 
value  on  the  private  family,  with  poverty,  than 
on  an  association  with  wealth,  will  not  prove 
insuperable,  remains  to  be  determined. 

But  the  Communities  aimed  at  a  higher  suc 
cess  in  securing  to  all  their  members  an  equal 
and  thorough  education.  And  on  the  whole  one 
may  say  that  aims  so  generous  and  so  forced 
on  them  by  the  times,  will  not  be  relinquished, 
even  if  these  attempts  fail,  but  will  be  prose 
cuted  until  they  succeed. 

.  This  is  the  value  of  the  Communities  ;  not 
what  they  have  done,  but  the  revolution  which 
they  indicate  as  on  the  way.  Yes,  Government 
must  educate  the  poor  man.  Look  across  the 
country  from  any  hill-side  around  us  and  the 
landscape  seems  to  crave  Government.  The  act 
ual  differences  of  men  must  be  acknowledged, 
and  met  with  love  and  wisdom.  These  rising 
grounds  which  command  the  champaign  be 
low,  seem  to  ask  for  lords,  true  lords,  land- 
lords,  who  understand  the  land  and  its  uses  and 
the  applicabilities  of  men,  and  whose  govern 
ment  would  be  what  it  should,  namely  media 
tion  between  want  and  supply.  How  gladly 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  385 

would  each  citizen  pay  a  commission  for  the  sup 
port  and  continuation  of  good  guidance.  None 
should  be  a  governor  who  has  not  a  talent  for 
governing.  Now  many  people  have  a  native 
skill  for  carving  out  business  for  many  hands  ; 
a  genius  for  the  disposition  of  affairs  ;  and  are 
never  happier  than  when  difficult  practical  ques 
tions,  which  embarrass  other  men,  are  to  be 
solved.  All  lies  in  light  before  them  ;  they  are 
in  their  element.  Could  any  means  be  contrived 
to  appoint  only  these  !  There  really  seems  a 
progress  towards  such  a  state  of  things  in  which 
this  work  shall  be  done  by  these  natural  work 
men  ;  and  this,  not  certainly  through  any  in 
creased  discretion  shown  by  the  citizens  at  elec 
tions,  but  by  the  gradual  contempt  into  which 
official  government  falls,  and  the  increasing  dis 
position  of  private  adventurers  to  assume  its 
fallen  functions.  Thus  the  national  Post  Office 
is  likely  to  go  into  disuse  before  the  private 
telegraph  and  the  express  companies.  The  cur 
rency  threatens  to  fall  entirely  into  private  hands. 
Justice  is  continually  administered  more  and 
more  by  private  reference,  and  not  by  litiga 
tion.  We  have  feudal  governments  in  a  com 
mercial  age.  It  would  be  but  an  easy  extension 
of  our  commercial  system,  to  pay  a  private  em- 


386  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

peror  a  fee  for  services,  as  we  pay  an  architect, 
an  engineer,  or  a  lawyer.  If  any  man  has  a  tal 
ent  for  righting  wrong,  for  administering  diffi 
cult  affairs,  for  counselling  poor  farmers  how  to 
turn  their  estates  to  good  husbandry,  for  com 
bining  a  hundred  private  enterprises  to  a  general 
benefit,  let  him  in  the  county-town,  or  in  Court 
Street,  put  up  his  sign-board,  Mr.  Smith,  Gov 
ernor  y  Mr.  Johnson,  Working  king. 

How  can  our  young  men  complain  of  the 
poverty  of  things  in  New  England,  and  not 
feel  that  poverty  as  a  demand  on  their  charity 
to  make  New  England  rich  ?  Where  is  he  who 
seeing  a  thousand  men  useless  and  unhappy, 
and  making  the  whole  region  forlorn  by  their 
inaction,  and  conscious  himself  of  possessing  the 
faculty  they  want,  does  not  hear  his  call  to  go 
and  be  their  king  ? 

We  must  have  kings,  and  we  must  have  nobles. 
Nature  provides  such  in  every  society,  —  only 
let  us  have  the  real  instead  of  the  titular.  Let 
us  have  our  leading  and  our  inspiration  from 
the  best.  In  every  society  some  men  are  born 
to  rule  and  some  to  advise.  Let  the  powers  be 
well  directed,  directed  by  love,  and  they  would 
everywhere  be  greeted  with  joy  and  honor.  The 
chief  is  the  chief  all  the  world  over,  only  not 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  387 

.his  cap  and  his  plume.  It  is  only  their  dislike 
of  the  pretender,  which  makes  men  sometimes 
unjust  to  the  accomplished  man.  If  society 
were  transparent,  the  noble  would  everywhere 
be  gladly  received  and  accredited,  and  would 
not  be  asked  for  his  day's  work,  but  would  be 
felt  as  benefit,  inasmuch  as  he  was  noble.  That 
were  his  duty  and  stint,  —  to  keep  himself  pure 
and  purifying,  the  leaven  of  his  nation.  I  think 
I  see  place  and  duties  for  a  nobleman  in  every 
society  ;  but  it  is  not  to  drink  wine  and  ride 
in  a  fine  coach,  but  to  guide  and  adorn  life  for 
the  multitude  by  forethought,  by  elegant  studies, 
by  perseverance,  self-devotion,  and  the  remem 
brance  of  the  humble  old  friend,  by  making  his 
life  secretly  beautiful.1 

I  call  upon  you,  young  men,  to  obey  your 
heart  and  be  the  nobility  of  this  land.  In  every 
age  of  the  world  there  has  been  a  leading  nation, 
one  of  a  more  generous  sentiment,  whose  emi 
nent  citizens  were  willing  to  stand  for  the  inter 
ests  of  general  justice  and  humanity,  at  the  risk 
of  being  called,  by  the  men  of  the  moment, 
chimerical  and  fantastic.  Which  should  be  that 
nation  but  these  States  ?  Which  should  lead 
that  movement,  if  not  New  England  P^JWho 
should_Jead_  the  leaders,  but  the  Young  Ameri- 


388  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

can  ?  The  people,  and  the  world,  are  now  suf 
fering  from  the  want  of  religion  and  honor  in 
its  public  mind.  In  America,  out-of-doors  all 
seems  a  market ;  in-doors  an  air-tight  stove  of 
conventionalism.  Every  body  who  comes  into 
our  houses  savors  of  these  habits  ;  the  men,  of 
the  market ;  the  women,  of  the  custom.  I  find 
no  expression  in  our  state  papers  or  legislative 
debate,  in  our  lyceums  or  churches,  especially 
in  our  newspapers,  of  a  high  national  feeling, 
no  lofty  counsels  that  rightfully  stir  the  blood. 
I  speak  of  those  organs  which  can  be  presumed 
to  speak  a  popular  sense.  They  recommend 
conventional  virtues,  whatever  will  earn  and  pre 
serve  property  ;  always  the  capitalist ;  the  col 
lege,  the  church,  the  hospital,  the  theatre,  the 
hotel,  the  road,  the  ship  of  the  capitalist,  — 
whatever  goes  to  secure,  adorn,  enlarge  these 
is  good ;  what  jeopardizes  any  of  these  is  dam 
nable.  The  ' opposition'  papers,  so  called,  are 
on  the  same  side.  They  attack  the  great  capi 
talist,  but  with  the  aim  to  make  a  capitalist  of 
the  poor  man.  The  opposition  is  against  those 
who  have  money,  from  those  who  wish  to  have 
money.  But  who  announces  to  us  in  journal, 
or  in  pulpit,  or  in  the  street,  the  secret  of 
heroism  ? 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  389 

*f  Maa  alone 
Can  perform  the  impossible."  x 

I  shall  not  need  to  go  into  an  enumeration  of 
our  national  defects  and  vices  which  require  this 
Order  of  Censors  in  the  State.  I  might  not  set 
down  our  most  proclaimed  offences  as  the  worst. 
It  is  not  often  the  worst  trait  that  occasions  the 
loudest  outcry.  Men  complain  of  their  suffer 
ing,  and  not  of  the  crime.  I  fear  little  from  the 
bad  effect  of  Repudiation  ;  I  do  not  fear  that 
it  will  spread.  Stealing  is  a  suicidal  business ; 
you  cannot  repudiate  but  once.  But  the  bold 
face  and  tardy  repentance  permitted  to  this  local 
mischief  reveal  a  public  mind  so  preoccupied 
with  the  love  of  gain  that  the  common  senti 
ment  of  indignation  at  fraud  does  not  act  with 
its  natural  force.  The  more  need  of  a  withdrawal 
from  the  crowd,  and  a  resort  to  the  fountain  of 
right,  by  the  brave.  The  timidity  of  our  public 
opinion  is  our  disease,  or,  shall  I  say,  the  pub- 
licness  of  opinion,  the  absence  of  private  opinion. 
Good  nature  is  plentiful,  but  we  want  justice, 
with  heart  of  steel,  to  fight  down  the  proud.2 
The  private  mind  has  the  access  to  the  totality 
of  goodness  and  truth  that  it  may  be  a  balance 
to  a  corrupt  society  ;  and  to  stand  for  the  pri 
vate  verdict  against  popular  clamor  is  the  office 


390  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

of  the  noble.  If  a  humane  measure  is  pro 
pounded  in  behalf  of  the  slave,  or  of  the  Irish 
man,  or  the  Catholic,  or  for  the  succor  of  the 
poor ;  that  sentiment,  that  project,  will  have 
the  homage  of  the  hero.  That  is  his  nobility, 
his  oath  of  knighthood,  to  succor  the  helpless 
and  oppressed ;  always  to  throw  himself  on 
the  side  of  weakness,  of  youth,  of  hope;  on  the 
liberal,  on  the  expansive  side,  never  on  the  de 
fensive,  the  conserving,  the  timorous,  the  lock- 
and-bolt  system.  More  than  our  good-will  we 
may  not  be  able  to  give.  We  have  our  own 
affairs,  our  own  genius,  which  chains  each  to  his 
proper  work.  We  cannot  give  our  life  to  the 
cause  of  the  debtor,  of  the  slave,  or  the  pauper, 
as  another  is  doing ;  but  to  one  thing  we  are 
bound,  not  to  blaspheme  the  sentiment  and  the 
work  of  that  man,  not  to  throw  stumbling-blocks 
in  the  way  of  the  abolitionist,  the  philanthro 
pist  ;  as  the  organs  of  influence  and  opinion  are 
swift  to  do.  It  is  for  us  to  confide  in  the  bene 
ficent  Supreme  Power,  and  not  to  rely  on  our 
money,  and  on  the  state  because  it  is  the  guard 
of  money.  At  this  moment,  the  terror  of  old 
people  and  of  vicious  people  is  lest  the  Union 
of  these  states  be  destroyed  :  a&  if  the  Union 
had  any  other  real  basis  than  the  good  pleasure 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  391 

of  a  majority  of  the  citizens  to  be  united.1  But 
the  wise  and  just  man  will  always  feel  that  he 
stands  on  his  own  feet ;  that  he  imparts  strength 
to  the  State,  not  receives  security  from  it ;  and 
that  if  all  went  down,  he  and  such  as  he  would 
quite  easily  combine  in  a  new  and  better  consti 
tution.  Every  great  and  memorable  community 
has  consisted  of  formidable  individuals,  who,  like 
the  Roman  or  the  Spartan,  lent  his  own  spirit 
to  the  State  and  made  it  great.  Yet  only  by 
the  supernatural  is  a  man  strong ;  nothing  is  so 
weak  as  an  egotist.  Nothing  is  mightier  than 
we,  when  we  are  vehicles  of  a  truth  before  which 
the  State  and  the  individual  are  alike  ephem 
eral. 

Gentlemen,  the  development  of  our  American 
internal  resources,  the  extension  to  the  utmost 
of  the  commercial  system,  and  the  appearance 
of  new  moral  causes  which  are  to  modify  the 
State,  are  giving  an  aspect  of  greatness  to  the 
Future,  which  the  imagination  fears  to  open. 
One  thing  is  plain  for  all  men  of  common  sense 
and  common  conscience,  that  here,  here  in  Amer 
ica,  is  the  home  of  man.  After  all  the  deductions 
which  are  to  be  made  for  our  pitiful  politics, 
which  stake  every  gravest  national  question  on 
the  silly  die  whether  James  or  whether  Robert 


392  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

shall  sit  in  the  chair  and  hold  the  purse;  after  all 
the  deduction  is  made  for  our  frivolities  and  in 
sanities,  there  still  remains  an  organic  simplicity 
and  liberty,  which,  when  it  loses  its  balance,  re 
dresses  itself  presently,  which  offers-opportunity 
to  the  human  mind  not  known  in  any  other 
region. 

It  is  true,  the  public  mind  wants  self-respect. 
We  are  full  of  vanity,  of  which  the  most  signal 
proof  is  our  sensitiveness  to  foreign  and  espe 
cially  English  censure.  One  cause  of  this  is  our 
immense  reading,  and  that  reading  chiefly  con 
fined  to  the  productions  of  the  English  press. 
It  is  also  true  that  to  imaginative  persons  in  this 
country  there  is  somewhat  bare  and  bald  in  our 
short  history  and  unsettled  wilderness.  They 
ask,  who  would  live  in  a  new  country  that  can 
live  in  an  old  ?  and  it  is  not  strange  that  our 
youths  and  maidens  should  burn  to  see  the 
picturesque  extremes  of  an  antiquated  country. 
But  it  is  one  thing  to  visit  the  Pyramids,  and 
another  to  wish  to  live  there.  Would  they  like 
tithes  to  the  clergy,  and  sevenths  to  the  gov 
ernment,  and  Horse-Guards,  and  licensed  press, 
and  grief  when  a  child  is  born,  and  threatening, 
starved  weavers,  and  a  pauperism  now  constitut 
ing  one  thirteenth  of  the  population  ? '  Instead 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  393 

of  lhe_open  future  expanding  here  before  the 
eye  of  every  boy  to  vastness,  would  they  like  the 
closing  in  of  the  future  to  a  narrow  slit  of  sky, 
and  that  fast  contracting  to  be  no  future  ?  One 
thing  for  instance,  the  beauties  of  aristocracy,  we 
commend  to  the  study  of  the  travelling  Ameri 
can.  The  English,  the  most  conservative  people 
this  side  of  India,  are  not  sensible  of  the  restraint, 
but  an  American  would  seriously  resent  it.  The 
aristocracy,  incorporated  by  law  and  education, 
degrades  life  for  the  unprivileged  classes.  It  is 
a  questionable  compensation  to  the  embittered 
feeling  of  a  proud  commoner,  the  reflection  that 
a  fop,  who,  by  the  magic  of  title,  paralyzes  his 
arm  and  plucks  from  him  half  the  graces  and 
rights  of  a  man,  is  himself  also  an  aspirant  ex 
cluded  with  the  same  ruthlessness  from  higher 
circles,  since  there  is  no  end  to  the  wheels  within 
wheels  of  this  spiral  heaven.  Something  may  be 
pardoned  to  the  spirit  of  loyalty  when  it  becomes 
fantastic ;  and  something  to  the  imagination,  for 
the  baldest  life  is  symbolic.  Philip  II.  of  Spain 
rated  his  ambassador  for  neglecting  serious  affairs 
in  Italy,  whilst  he  debated  some  point  of  honor 
with  the  French  ambassador;  "You  have  left  a 
business  of  importance  for  a  ceremony."  The 
ambassador  replied,  "  Your  Majesty's  self  is  but 


394  THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN 

a  ceremony."  In  the  East,  where  the  religious 
sentiment  comes  in  to  the  support  of  the  aris 
tocracy,  and  in  the  Romish  church  also,  there  is 
a  grain  of  sweetness  in  the  tyranny ;  but  in  Eng 
land,  the  fact  seems  to  me  intolerable,  what  is 
commonly  affirmed,  that  such  is  the  transcen 
dent  honor  accorded  to  wealth  and  birth,  that  no 
man  of  letters,  be  his  eminence  what  it  may,  is 
received  into  the  best  society,  except  as  a  lion 
and  a  show.  The  English  have  many  virtues, 
many  advantages,  and  the  proudest  history  of 
the  world ;  but  they  need  all  and  more  than  all 
the  resources  of  the  past  to  indemnify  a  heroic 
gentleman  in  that  country  for  the  mortifications 
prepared  for  him  by  the  system  of  society,  and 
which  seem  to  impose  the  alternative  to  resist  or 
to  avoid  it.  That  there  are  mitigations  and  prac 
tical  alleviations  to  this  rigor,  is  not  an  excuse 
for  the  rule.  Commanding  worth  and  personal 
power  must  sit  crowned  in  all  companies,  nor  will 
extraordinary  persons  be  slighted  or  affronted  in 
any  company  of  civilized  men.  But  the  system 
is  an  invasion  of  the  sentiment  of  justice  and  the 
native  rights  of  men,  which,  however  decorated, 
must  lessen  the  value  of  English  citizenship.1  It 
is  for  Englishmen  to  consider,  not  for  us ;  we 
only  say,  Let  us  live  in  America,  too  thankful 


THE  YOUNG  AMERICAN  395 

for  our  want  of  feudal  institutions.  Our  houses 
and  towns  are  like  mosses  and  lichens,  so  slight 
and  new  ;  but  youth  is  a  fault  of  which  we  shall 
daily  mend.  Thisjand  too  is  as  old  as  the  Flood, 
and  wants  no  ornament  or  privilege  which  nature 
could  bestow.  Here  stars,  here  woods,  here  hills, 
here  animals,  here  men  abound,  and  the  vast  ten 
dencies  concur  of  a  new  order.  If  only  the  men 
are  employed  in  conspiring  with  the  designs  of 
the  Spirit  who  led  us  hither  and  is  leading  us 
still,  we  shall  quickly  enough  advance  out  of  all 
hearing  of  others'  censures,  out  of  all  regrets  of 
our  own,  into  a  new  and  more  excellent  social 
state  than  history  has  recorded. 


NOTES 


NOTES 

NATURE 

IN    his    boyish   poem    "  Good-bye,"    Mr.   Emerson   told 
how,  among  the  cedar  and   barberry    thickets   of  Rox- 
bury,  he  found  that 

Man  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet. 

In  his  boyhood,  though  city  born,  the  doors  of  his  grand 
father's  house  by  Concord  River  were  always  open  to  him. 
He  knew  well  those  meadows,  the  hills  of  Waltham  and 
Newton,  and  the  Chelmsford  woods  in  his  schoolboy  and 
school-teaching  days.  The  attractions  of  beautiful  and  living 
Nature  grew  with  the  increasing  repulsion  which  he  felt  dur 
ing  his  ministry  from  formalism  and  Hebraism. 

As  the  little  book  Nature  was  Mr.  Emerson's  first  venture 
in  letters,  yet  is  still  held  as  one  of  his  most  notable  wrorks, 
it  seems  justifiable  to  recall,  even  at  some  length,  its  history 
and  the  reception  it  met  with  in  America  and  in  England. 

In  his  journals  it  does  not  appear  how  long  he  had  been 
meditating  this  book.  The  first  mention  of  it  occurs  in  his 
diary  on  shipboard,  returning  from  his  earliest  visit  to  Europe 
in  1833.  Just  three  years  later  the  book  appeared.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  these  had  been  sad  and  unsettled  days 
for  him.  His  home  had  been  broken  up  by  the  death  of 
his  young  wife,  and  his  recoil  from  certain  forms  and  rites 
in  worship  had  driven  him  to  part  from  his  church.  He  had 
made  the  journey  to  Italy,  France,  and  England  to  recruit 
his  strength  and  prepare  for  a  changed  life.  He  writes,  Sep 
tember  6,  "  I  like  my  book  about  nature,  and  wish  I  knew 


400  NOTES 

when  and  where  I  ought  to  live.  God  will  show  me.  I  am 
glad  to  be  on  my  way  home,  yet  not  so  glad  as  others,  and  my 
way  to  the  bottom  I  could  find,  perchance,  with  less  regret,  for 
I  think  it  would  not  hurt  me,  that  is,  the  ducking  or  drowning. ' ' 
In  November,  1834,  Mr-  Emerson  came  to  make  his  home 
in  Concord  and  lived  for  a  time  with  his  venerable  step- 
grandfather,  Dr.  Ezra  Ripley.  There,  in  the  little  room  in 
the  southern  gable,  since  known  as  the  Prophet's  Chamber, 
where  later  Hawthorne  wrote  the  Mosses  from  an  Old 
Manse,  he  worked  on  his  book.  Mr.  Cabot  in  his  Memoir  * 
says  that  probably  the  first  five  chapters  had  been  for  some 
time  in  hand,  that  the  seventh  and  eighth  chapters  seem  to 
have  been  written  after  his  removal  to  Concord,  and  the  sixth 
(Idealism)  last  of  all,  as  the  connection  of  the  two.  In  writ 
ing  to  his  brother  William,  he  says:  — 

CONCORD,  JUNE  28,  1836. 

My  little  book  is  nearly  done.  Its  title  is  Nature.  .  .  . 
My  design  is  to  follow  it  with  another  essay,  Spirit,  and 
the  two  shall  make  a  decent  volume. 

AUGUST  8. 

The  book  of  Nature  stili  lies  on  the  table  ;  there  is,  as  al 
ways,  one  crack  in  it,  not  easy  to  be  soldered  or  welded  ;  but  if 
this  week  I  should  be  left  alone,  I  may  finish  it. 

It  was  published  in  September,  anonymously  ;  only  five 
hundred  copies  were  printed,  and  of  these  many  remained  long 
unsold,  so  that  a  second  edition  was  not  called  for  until  1 849. 

In  this  essay,  as  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Lord's  Supper, 
it  is  interesting  to  note  a  more  ordered  presentation  of  the 
ideas  —  such  as  was  usual  in  sermons  —  than  Mr.  Emerson 
in  the  later  writings  cared  to  attempt. 

*  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     By  James  Elliot  Cabot. 


NOTES  401 

Mr.  Cabot  in  his  Memoir  says  that  "by  the  Christian 
Examiner,  the  chief  organ  of  the  Unitarians,  Nature  was 
treated  rather  indulgently  as  a  poetical  rhapsody  containing 
much  beautiful  writing  and  not  devoid  of  sound  philosophy, 
but,  on  the  whole,  producing  the  impression  of  a  disordered 
dream."  He  adds,  «'  Transcendentalism  was  attacked  (though 
more  often  sneered  at)  as  a  threat,  however  impotent,  of 
radical  revolution,  but  not  often,  I  think,  in  the  person  of 
Emerson.  In  him,  it  would  be  felt,  revolution  was  like  the 
revolutions  of  Nature,  who  does  not  cast  off  her  old  leaves 
until  she  has  got  ready  the  new." 

The  Examiner's  view  of  the  work  as  a  poetical  rhapsody 
suggests  Dr.  Holmes' s  account  of  it.  "  Nature  is  a  reflective 
prose  poem.  It  is  divided  into  eight  chapters,  which  might 
almost  as  well  have  been  called  cantos.  Beginning  simply 
enough,  it  took  more  and  more  the  character  of  a  rhapsody, 
until,  as  if  lifted  off  his  feet  by  the  deepened  and  stronger 
undercurrent  of  his  thought,  the  writer  dropped  his  personality, 
and  repeated  the  words  which  '  a  certain  poet  sang  to  him. '  J 
It  is,  however,  very  possible  that  the  passage  referred  to,  in 
the  last  chapter  of  Nature,  was  a  poetical  rendering  of  the 
thoughts  of  his  new-found  friend,  Mr.  Alcott. 

Immediately  on  the  appearance  of  Nature,  Emerson  wrote 
to  Carlyle  :  — 

"I  send  you  a  little  book  I  have  just  now  published  ;  an 
entering  wedge,  I  hope,  to  something  more  worthy  and  signifi 
cant.  This  is  only  a  naming  of  topics  on  which  I  would 
gladly  speak  and  gladlier  hear. ' ' 

Carlyle  thus  hailed  its  appearance  :  — 

"  Your  little  azure-coloured  Nature  gave  me  true  satisfac- 


402  NOTES 

tion.  I  read  it  and  then  lent  it  about  to  all  my  acquaintance 
that  had  a  sense  for  such  things,  from  whom  a  similar  verdict 
always  came  back.  You  say  it  is  the  first  chapter  of  something 
greater.  I  call  it  rather  a  Foundation  and  Ground-plan  on 
which  you  may  build  whatsoever  of  great  and  true  has  been 
given  you  to  build.  It  is  the  true  Apocalypse,  this  where  the 
'  Open  Secret  *  becomes  revealed  to  a  man.  I  rejoice  much 
in  the  glad  serenity  of  soul  with  which  you  look  out  on  this 
wondrous  Dwelling-place  of  yours  and  mine,  —  with  an  ear 
for  the  Eivigen  Melodien  which  pipe  in  the  winds  round  us 
and  utter  themselves  forth  in  all  sounds  and  sights  and  things: 
not  to  be  written  down  by  gamut  machinery,  but  which  all 
right  writing  is  a  kind  of  attempt  to  write  down.  You  will 
see  what  the  years  will  bring  you." 

In  a  letter  written  in  April,  1839,  he  tells  that  "people 
are  beginning  to  quote  you  here  :  tant  pis  pour  eux.  I  have 
found  you  in  two  Cambridge  books  ;  a  certain  Mr.  Richard 
Monckton  Milnes,  M.  P.,  a  beautiful  little  Tory  dilettante 
poet  and  politician,  whom  I  love  much,  applied  to  me  for 
Nature,  that  he  might  write  upon  it." 

And  soon  after  he  received  this  greeting  in  a  letter  from 

Sterling  : '  — 

SEPTEMBER   30,  1839. 

I  have  read  very,  very  little  modern  English  writing  that  has 
struck  and  pleased  me  so  much  ;  among  recent  productions, 

i  John  Sterling,  a  writer  of  prose  and  verse  (  The  Onyx  Ring ;  The  Sextant 
Daughter  and  Other  Poems  ,•  Strafford,  a  Tragedy,  etc. ) ,  now,  however,  best 
known  as  the  subject  of  biographies  by  Carlyle  and  Archdeacon  Hare.  With 
this  brilliant  and  inspiring  man  Emerson  formed  a  close  friendship  by  letters, 
though  they  never  met,  lasting  until  Sterling's  early  death  in  1847.  See 
A  Correspondence  between  Sterling  and  Emerson,  published  by  Messrs. 
Houghton,  Mifflm  &  Co.,  1897. 


NOTES  403 

almost  only  those  of  our  friend  Carlyle,  whose  shaggy-browed 
and  deep-eyed  thoughts  have  often  a  likeness  to  yours  which 
is  very  attractive  and  impressive,  neither  evidently  being  the 
double  of  the  other.  ...  I  trust  that  you  will  long  continue 
to  diffuse,  by  your  example  as  well  as  doctrine,  the  knowledge 
that  the  Sun  and  Earth  and  Plato  and  Shakspeare  are  what 
they  are  by  working  each  in  his  vocation  ;  and  that  we  can 
be  anything  better  than  mountebanks  living,  and  scarecrows 
dead,  only  by  doing  so  likewise.  For  my  better  assurance 
of  this  truth,  as  well  as  for  much  and  cordial  kindness,  I  shall 
always  remain  your  debtor. 

In  this  essay  Emerson  announced  his  doctrine  of  the 
Oversoul,  the  Universal  Mind,  which  runs  through  all  his 
work.  Its  keynote  is  given  in  the  words  "  The  noblest  min 
istry  of  Nature  is  to  stand  as  the  apparition  of  God.  It  is  the 
organ  through  which  the  universal  spirit  speaks  to  the  indi 
vidual  and  strives  to  lead  back  the  individual  to  it.  ...  The 
world  proceeds  from  the  same  spirit  as  the  body  of  man.  It 
is  a  remoter  and  inferior  incarnation  of  God,  a  projection  of 
God  in  the  unconscious.  But  it  differs  from  the  body  in  one 
important  respect.  It  is  not,  like  that,  now  subjected  to  the 
human  will.  Its  serene  order  is  inviolable  by  us.  It  is, 
therefore,  to  us,  the  present  expositor  of  the  divine  mind.  It 
is  a  fixed  point  whereby  we  may  measure  our  departure." 

Page  if  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  loved  to  place  a  motto  at 
the  head  of  his  chapter.  Dr.  Holmes  suggested  that  the 
hereditary  use  of  a  text  before  a  discourse  survived  thus  in 
him.  Before  Nature  in  the  first  edition  he  placed  the  words 
of  Plotinus  :  "Nature  is  but  an  image  or  imitation  ofwis- 


404  NOTES 

dom,  the  last  thing  of  the  soul  ;  Nature  being  a  thing  which 
doth  only  do,  but  not  know.'* 

Of  the  verse  containing  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  which 
he  wrote  for  the  second  edition,  and  which  still  stands  before 
the  Essay,  something  has  been  said  in  the  biographical  sketch. 

The  present  motto  was  placed  at  the  beginning  of  Nature 
in  its  second  edition  in  1849  instead  of  the  sentence  of  Plo- 
tinus.  But  in  the  new  one,  Mr.  William  T.  Harris I  finds 
this  thought  of  Plotinus,  whom  he  thus  quotes  :  "  We  might 
say  that  all  beings,  not  only  rational  ones,  but  even  irrational 
ones,  the  plants,  and  even  the  soil  that  bears  them,  aspire  to 
attain  conscious  knowledge,"  and  credits  to  Plotinus  "  the  sug 
gestion  of  those  fine  poetic  dreams  of  Schelling  and  Oken,  — 
that  reason  dreams  in  the  plant,  and  feels  in  the  animal,  and 
thinks  in  man. ' '  As  has  been  said  in  the  biographical  sketch, 
Plato  and  his  followers  had  prepared  Mr.  Emerson's  mind 
to  welcome  the  dawning  evolution  theories  of  Lamarck  and 
others,  which  probably  came  to  him  through  Ly ell's  work  on 
Geology,  and  in  conversation  with  scholars  of  science.  Dar 
win's  Origin  of  Species  was  not  published  until  1859. 

During  his  short  stay  in  Paris  in  1833,  Mr.  Emerson 
visited  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  and  in  a  lecture  called  The 
Uses  of  Natural  History ,  read  before  the  Boston  Natural  His 
tory  Society  in  November  of  that  year,  told  of  what  he  saw. 
In  it  he  said  :  "  The  eye  is  satisfied  with  seeing,  and  strange 
thoughts  arise.  The  universe  is  a  more  amazing  puzzle  than 
ever  as  yo,u  look  along  this  bewildering  series  of  animated 
forces.  .  .  .  While  I  stand  there  I  am  impressed  with  a  sin 
gular  conviction  that  not  a  form  so  grotesque,  so  savage,  or  so 
beautiful,  but  is  an  expression  of  something  in  man  the  ob- 

i  Memoir  of  Branson  Alcott^  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  and  W.  T.  Harris. 


NOTES  405 

server.  We  feel  that  there  is  an  occult  relation  between  the 
very  worm,  the  crawling  scorpions,  and  man.  I  am  moved 
by  strange  sympathies.  I  say  I  will  listen  to  this  invitation. 
I  will  be  a  naturalist." 

Page  4,  note  I.     Compare  the  line  in  "The  Sphinx," 

Poems :  — 

Thou  art  the  unanswered  question. 

Page  4,  note  2.  It  should  be  remembered  to  how  large  a 
part  of  the  educated  world  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  stood 
in  1836  as  the  sole  and  final  authority  on  Creation.  Geology 
and  paleontology  were  in  their  infancy,  comparative  anatomy 
little  advanced,  and  biology  hardly  born.  The  new  philo 
sophic  ideas  of  progressive  development  and  amelioration,  forti 
fied  by  the  new  science,  were  welcomed  by  Mr.  Emerson  as 
harmonizing  with  the  laws  of  spirit. 

Page  7,  note  I.  In  the  heavenly  bodies  Emerson  early 
found  his  teachers  :  symbols  of  light  and  law,  in  their  beauty, 
their  vast  excursion  and  sure  return,  they  guide  his  thought 
and  illuminate  his  works.  (See  especially  "The  Poet" 
\Poems,  Appendix],  "  Woodnotes,"!!.,  "Character,"  and 
"  Uriel.")  His  early  journals  show  that  the  system  of  Coper 
nicus  widened  his  views  as  a  minister.  In  1833,  in  Flor 
ence,  he  did  homage  at  the  tomb  of  Galileo.  He  read  the 
lives  of  Kepler  and  Newton,  and  Herschel's  Astronomy,  and 
often  expressed  the  hope  that  old  age  might  bring  him  leisure 
to  study  the  stars.  It  was  his  counsel  "  Hitch  your  wagon  to 
a  star. "  (  "  Civilization, ' '  Society  and  Solitude. ) 

Page  £?,  note  I.  Compare  the  sentence  in  a  note-book  of 
Mr.  Emerson's  from  Plutarch's  essay  in  the  Morals,  "  Why 
the  Pythian  Priestess  ceases  her  Oracles  in  Verse  :  "  — 

"  The  Sun  is  the  cause  that  all  men  are  ignorant  of  Apollo, 


4o6  NOTES 

by  sense  withdrawing  the  rational  intellect  from  that  which  is 
to  that  which  appears." 

Page  p,  note  2.  This  sentence  and  what  'follows  are  dis 
tinctly  autobiographical,  representing  the  life  that  Mr.  Emer 
son  led  in  Concord,  going  almost  daily  alone  to  the  woods  to 
attune  himself  to  receive  through  their  symbolic  life  hints  of 
the  spiritual  life. 
Page  9,  note  J. 

Sheen  will  tarnish,  honey  cloy, 
And  merry  is  only  a  mask  of  sad, 
But  sober  on  a  fund  of  joy, 
The  woods  at  heart  are  glad.  « 

' '  Waldeinsamkeit, ' '  Poems. 

Page  ioy  note  I.  Here  first  appears  in  his  published  writ 
ings  Emerson's  doctrine  of  the  Universal  Mind  or  the  Over- 
soul,  which  thereafter  ran  through  all  his  works. 

The  little  poem  "Pan"  (see  Poems ,  Appendix)  is  called 
to  mind  by  this  passage. 

Page  n,  note  I. 

Methought  the  sky  looked  scornful  down 
On  all  was  base  in  man, 
And  airy  tongues  did  taunt  the  town, 
'  Achieve  our  peace  who  can  ! J 

"Walden,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  /J,  note  I.  In  the  journal  for  1855  is  written  this 
little  prose  poem  :  — 

THE    YEAR. 

There  is  no  flower  so  sweet  as  the  four-petalled  flower 
which  science  much  neglects;  one  grey  petal  it  has,  one  green, 
one  red,  and  one  white. 


NOTES  407 

Page  ij,  note  2.  George  Herbert's  poem  " Man," 
five  stanzas  of  which  are  given  in  chapter  viii.  of  this  essay. 

Page  14,  note  i.  Mr.  Emerson's  friend,  Henry  Thoreau, 
wrote  :  "  I  do  not  go  there  [to  the  woods]  to  get  my  dinner, 
but  to  get  that  sustenance  which  dinners  only  preserve  me  to 
enjoy." 

Page  16,  note  i.  See  first  page  of  "Spiritual  Laws," 
Essays,  First  Series. 

Page  if,  note  I.  The  poem  "Sunrise,"  written  probably 
at  the  same  time,  while  Mr.  Emerson  lived  at  the  Old  Manse, 
describes  the  morning  seen  from  the  hill  opposite.  (^Poems, 
Appendix. ) 

Page  18,  note  i. 

Ah!  well  I  mind  the  calendar, 
Faithful  through  a  thousand  years, 
Of  the  painted  race  of  flowers,  etc. 

"  May-Day,"  Poems. 

Page  20,  note  I.  Compare  quatrain  "Northman,"  in 
Poems. 

Page  23,  note  I. 

Thee,  gliding  through  the  sea  of  form,  etc. 

"  Ode  to  Beauty, "Poems. 

Page  24,  note  I.  "Each  and  All  "  and  "  Xenophanes," 
Poems. 

Page  24,  note  2.    The  theme  of  "  The  Rhodora,"  Poems. 

Page  24,  note  J.  This  Trinity  of  the  different  manifesta 
tions  of  Spirit  through  the  universe,  symbolized  in  matter  by 
the  Protean  aspects,  of  light,  heat,  motion,  was  a  basal  thought 
with  Emerson.  It  is  expressed  again  in  the  chapter  "  Spirit  " 
in  this  essay,  in  "  The  Transcendentalist  "  in  this  volume, 


408  NOTES 

and  in  the  end  of  "Art,"  Society  and  Solitude,  and  as  the 
"  three  children  of  the  Universe  "  in  the  first  pages  of"  The 
Poet,"  Essays,  Second  Series.  Sidney  Lanier,  in  his  last  lecture 
before  his  death,  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,1  spoke  of 
this  Trinity  of  Emerson's. 

In  Thomas  Taylor's  Substance  of  Porphyry's  Life  of 
Plotinus,  Plato's  and  Plotinus's  Trinity,  the  Good,  Intellect 
and  the  Soul,  is  discussed,  and  the  author  adds,  «'  This  theory, 
the  progeny  of  the  most  consummate  science,  is  in  perfect 
conformity  with  the  theology  of  the  Chaldasans.  And  hence 
is  it  said  in  one  of  their  oracles,  '  In  every  world  a  triad 
shines  forth,  of  which  a  monad  is  the  ruling  principle.'  ' 

Page  27,  note  I.  Ila^Ta  pel,  the  doctrine  of  the  flowing 
of  all  things,  taught  by  Heracleitus  of  Ephesus  (536-470 
B.  c. ),  and  often  quoted  by  Plato. 

Far  seen,  the  river  glides  below, 
Tossing  one  sparkle  to  the  eyes. 
I  catch  thy  meaning,  wizard  wave  ; 
The  river  of  my  life  replies. 

"Walden,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

The  ripples  in  rhymes  the  oar  forsake. 

"Woodnotes,"  II.,  Poems. 

Page  jo,  note  I. 

To  clothe  the  fiery  thought 
In  simple  words  succeeds, 
For  still  the  craft  of  genius  is 
To  mask  a  king  in  weeds. 

Quatrain  "Poet,"  Poems. 

1  "Moral  Purpose  in  Art,"  published  in  the  Century  Magazine  for 
May,  1883. 


NOTES  409 

Page  32,  note  I. 

The  mountain  utters  the  same  sense 
Unchanged  in  its  intelligence, 
For  ages  sheds  its  walnut  leaves, 
One  joy  it  joys,  one  grief  it  grieves. 

"  Nature,"  Fragments,  Poems,  Appendix. 

See  also  the  last  passage  in  the  poem  "  Monadnoc." 

Page  34.,  note  I.  t(  Can  such  things  be?"  etc.  Shak- 
speare,  Macbeth,  iii.  4. 

Page  jp,  note  I .  'Act  yap  tv  TTLTTTOVCTLV  01  Atos  Kvj3oi. 
The  dice  of  Zeus  ever  fall  aright.  From  a  lost  play  of 
Sophocles,  Fragment  763  ;  used  also  in  "  Compensation," 
Essays,  First  Series  ;  also  "Worship,"  Conduct  of  Life. 

Page  41,  note  I.  This  doctrine  expanded  in  "  Sover 
eignty  of  Ethics,"  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches ;  ten 
commandments  ;  compare  end  of  "  Prudence,"  Essays,  First 
Series. 

Page  42,  note  I.  The  oracle  of  Nature  is  overheard  by 
the  listener  in  the  wood;  "Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  IV., 
Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  42,  note  2. 

Teach  me  your  mood,  O  patient  stars! 
Who  climb  each  night  the  ancient  sky, 
Leaving  on  space  no  stain,  no  scars, 
No  trace  of  age,  no  fear  to  die. 

"Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  43,  note  I.      See  "  Xenophanes,"  Poems. 
Xenophanes  of  Elea,  the  rhapsodist  and  philosopher  (570- 
480  B.  c. ),  taught  the  unity  of  God  and  Nature.      His  doc- 


410  NOTES 

trine,  tVEi/  /ecu  Trav,  the  One  and  the  All,  constantly  recurs 
in  Emerson*  s  writings.  Xenophanes  said,  "  There  is  one 
God,  the  greatest  among  gods  and  men,  comparable  to  mor 
tals  neither  in  form  nor  thought."  Mr.  Arthur  K.  Rogers,  in 
his  Student's  History  of  Philosophy,  says  that  what  Xeno 
phanes  taught  was  "  that  what  we  name  God  is  the  one  immu 
table  and  comprehensive  material  universe  which  holds  within 
it  and  determines  all  those  minor  phenomena  to  which  an  en 
lightened  philosophy  will  reduce  the  many  deities  of  the  popu 
lar  faith.  The  conception  is  not  unlike  that  of  Spinoza  in 
later  times." 

Page  43,  note  2.  This  passage  occurs  in  a  lecture  given 
in  December,  1832,  before  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural 
History. 

Page  45,  note  i.  Although  the  "degradation"  was  a 
Platonic  doctrine,  I  think  it  so  contrary  to  Mr.  Emerson's 
steady  belief  in  amelioration  that  the  expression  here  implies 
merely  that  the  animals  are  lower  steps  in  an  ascending  series. 

Page  46,  note  i.  This  image,  slightly  varied,  is  found 
in  "  Pan,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  46)  note  2.  Mr.  Emerson's  brilliant  brothers,  Ed 
ward  Bliss  Emerson  and  Charles  Chauncy  Emerson,  had 
died  within  the  two  years  before  the  publication  of  Nature. 
Of  Edward's  powers  and  nobility,  his  brother  tells  in  his 
poem,  ' '  The  Dirge. "  Of  Charles  he  wrote :  * <  Beautiful  with 
out  any  parallel  in  my  experience  of  young  men  was  his  life. 
...  I  have  felt  in  him  the  inestimable  advantage,  when 
God  allows  it,  of  finding  a  brother  and  a  friend  in  one." 

Page  47,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  in  one  of  his 
Journals,  "  I  remember  when  a  child,  in  the  pew  on  Sundays, 
amusing  myself  with  saying  over  common  words,  as  'black,' 
'white,'  'board,'  etc.,  twenty  or  thirty  times,  until  the 


NOTES  4u 

words  lost  all  meaning  and  fixedness,  and  I  began  to  doubt 
which  was  the  right  name  for  the  thing,  when  I  saw  that 
neither  had  any  natural  relation,  but  were  all  arbitrary.  It 
was  a  child's  first  lesson  in  Idealism." 

Page  52,  note  I.  The  flowing  universe  is  told  of  in 
many  of  the  poems,  as  in  "  Woodnotes,"  II.,  "The  rush 
ing  metamorphosis,"  etc.,  and  later  '«  Onward  and  on,  the 
eternal  Pan,"  etc. 

Page  5J,  note  I.    Shakspeare,  Sonnet  Ixx. 

Page  ^3,  note  2.    Shakspeare,  Sonnet  cxxiv. 

Page  53,  note  J.  In  a  letter  written  in  December,  1838, 
to  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  then  editing  in  Ohio  The 
Western  Messenger,  to  which  Mr.  Emerson  contributed 
"  The  Humble- Bee,"  he  says:  — 

"  I  remember  in  your  letter  you  mentioned  the  remark  of 
some  friend  of  yours  that  the  verses,  '  Take,  O  take  those 
lips  away,'  were  not  Shakspeare's  ;  I  think  they  are.  Beau 
mont,  nor  Fletcher,  nor  both  together  were  ever,  I  think, 
visited  by  such  a  starry  gleam  as  that  stanza.  I  know  it  is 
in  Rollo,  but  it  is  in  Measure  for  Measure  also  ;  and  I 
remember  noticing  that  the  Malones,  and  Stevens,  and  criti 
cal  gentry  were  about  evenly  divided,  these  for  Shakspeare, 
and  those  for  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  But  the  internal  evi 
dence  is  all  for  one,  none  for  the  other.  If  he  did  not  write 
it,  they  did  not,  and  we  shall  have  some  fourth  unknown 
singer.  What  care  we  who  sung  this  or  that  ?  It  is  we  at 
last  who  sing." 

Page  55,  note  I. 

The  solid,  solid  universe 
Is  pervious  to  love,  etc. 

"  Cupido,"  Poems. 


412  NOTES 

Page  5<5,  note  I.  Leonhard  Euler  (1707-1783),  a 
Swiss  mathematician  of  remarkable  gifts  ;  also  a  man  of  char 
acter  and  wide  culture.  He  was  called  by  Catherine  of 
Russia  to  the  Academy  of  St.  Petersburg  as  professor  of 
physics,  and  later  of  mathematics.  Frederick  the  Great  in 
duced  him  to  come  to  Berlin,  where  he  remained  many  years, 
returning,  however,  to  Russia.  In  total  blindness  during  his 
last  years,  he  did  important  work. 

Page 57,  note  I.      Proverbs  viii.  23,  27,  28,  30. 

Page  5$,  note  I.  Plotinus  (204-269  A.  D.),  of  Lyco- 
polis  in  Egypt,  a  disciple  of  Ammonius  Saccus  of  Alexan 
dria,  sometimes  called  the  founder  of  Neo-Platonism,  went  to 
Rome  and  taught  philosophy  there.  Plotinus  accompanied 
the  Emperor  Gordian  in  his  expedition  into  Persia,  and  thus 
came  in  contact  with  the  teachings  of  Zoroaster.  He  said, 
"  The  sensuous  life  is  a  mere  stage  play  —  all  misery  in  it 
is  only  imaginary,  all  grief  a  mere  cheat  of  the  players  ;  the 
soul  is  not  in  the  game  ;  it  looks  on."  — Student's  History  of 
Philosophy,  by  Arthur  K.  Rogers. 

Page  62,  note  I.  "The  Bohemian  Hymn,"  Poems,  Ap 
pendix. 

Page  64,  note  I.      Milton,  Comus,  13,  14. 

Page  67,  note  I.  This  passage  refers  to  Mr.  Emerson's 
visit  to  the  Jar  din  des  Plantes  in  Paris  a  few  months  before. 
See  note  to  the  motto  of  this  essay. 

Page  70,  note  I.  It  is  very  possible  that  Mr.  William 
T.  Harris  is  right  where  he  says,  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Alcott's 
philosophy:  "I  have  been  obliged  to  think  ....  that  Mr. 
Emerson  attempted  to  preserve  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  book 
on  Nature  ...  a  picture  of  Mr.  Alcott  as  '  Orphic  Poet  * 
by  writing  out  in  his  own  words  and  with  an  effort  to  repro 
duce  the  style  of  thought,  words  and  delivery  of  Mr.  Alcott, 


NOTES  413 

the  idealistic  theory  which  he  had  heard  with  such  great  in 
terest."  —  Memoir  of  Br  on  son  Alcott,  by  F.  B»  Sanborn  and 
W.  T.  Harris. 

Page  72,  note  I.  "  He  who  desires  to  signify  divine 
concerns  through  symbols  is  orphic,  and,  in  short,  accords  with 
those  who  write  myths  concerning  the  Gods." — Proclus, 
Theology  of  Plato,  I.  iv. 

Page  7J,  note  i.  Alexander  Leopold  Franz  Emmerich 
Hohenlohe  (1794-1849),  a  priest,  born  at  Wiirtemberg,  of 
a  princely  family,  known  for  the  miraculous  cures,  attributed 
to  his  prayers,  in  Germany  and  England,  and  at  Washington, 
of  a  Mrs.  Mattingly,  in  1824. 

Page  75,  note  2.  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Ralph  Barton 
Perry,  of  Harvard  University,  for  the  following  information 
with  regard  to  these  expressions  :  '*  The  phrase  (vesper  tin  a 
cognitio}  signifies  the  twilight  knowledge  of  man  that  is  con 
trasted  with  the  full-day  knowledge  of  God  (matutina  cog 
nitio}.  Knowledge  of  things  in  their  several  natures  and 
particularity  is  twilight  knowledge,  while  the  knowledge  of 
the  ideas  that  constitute  the  plan  of  creation  is  day  knowledge. 
This  distinction  corresponds  to  the  technical  distinction  be- 
tween  a  posteriori  and  a  priori  knowledge.  The  distinction 
between  morning  and  evening  knowledge  refers  to  the  direc 
tion  of  the  partial  knowledge.  To  glorify  God,  or  to  see  him 
from  the  standpoint  of  darkness,  is  cognitio  matutina  ;  to  fall 
away  to  darkness  is  cognitio  vespertina.  The  angels  have  both 
in  one,  the  vespertina  being  contained  in  the  matutina.  The 
angels  have  the  vespertina  in  so  far  as  they  know  the  lower 
only  through  the  higher  —  or  see  the  higher  in  the  lower  — 
and  so  always  glorify  God.  The  use  of  these  phrases  is  very 
curiously  mingled  with  the  problem  of  morning  and  evening 
as  applying  to  the  period  preceding  the  creation  of  the  sun  and 


4H  NOTES 

moon.  —  See  St.  Augustine's  City  of  God,  Book  XI.,  chapters 
vii  and  xxix,  Dods's  translation.    Also  the  Summa  Theologize 
of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Part  I.,  Quasstio  Iviii,  Art.  6;  Qusestio 
Ixxiv,  Art.  3." 
Page  76,  note  I. 

Wiser  far  than  human  seer,  etc. 

"The  Humble-Bee,"  Poems. 
Also  :  — 

Let  me  go  where'er  I  will, 

I  hear  a  sky-born  music  still. 

"  Fragments  on  The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 


THE   AMERICAN   SCHOLAR 

In  1834  Mr.  Emerson  had  been  chosen  to  give  the  Poem 
at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  in  Cam 
bridge.  Three  years  later  he  was  invited  to  give  the  Address. 
A  month  before  the  meeting  he  wrote  in  his  Journal :  — 

29  JULY,  1837. 

If  the  All-wise  would  give  me  light,  I  should  write  for 
the  Cambridge  men  a  theory  of  the  Scholar's  office.  It  is  not 
all  books  which  it  behooves  him  to  know,  least  of  all  to  be  a 
book-worshipper,  but  he  must  be  able  to  read  in  all  books  that 
which  alone  gives  value  to  books  —  in  all  to  read  one,  the 
one  incorruptible  text  of  Truth.  That  alone  of  their  style  is 
intelligible,  acceptable  to  him. 

In  his  Memoir  of  Emerson  Mr.  Cabot  speaks  of  this  address 
as  "  a  much  needed  monition  to  the  cultivated  class  of  persons 


NOTES  415 

ki  New  England  to  think  for  themselves  instead  of  taking 
their  opinions  from  Europe  or  from  books." 

Mr.  Lowell,  speaking  of  this  epoch  of  "the  Newness," 
as  the  spiritual  awakening  of  New  England  was  sometimes 
called,  said,  "The  Puritan  revolt  had  made  us  ecclesiasti 
cally,  and  the  Revolution  politically  independent,  but  we  were 
still  socially  and  intellectually  moored  to  English  thought,  till 
Emerson  cut  the  cable  and  gave  us  a  chance  at  the  dangers 
and  the  glories  of  blue  water.  .  .  .  His  oration  before  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge,  some  thirty  years  ago, 
was  an  event  without  any  former  parallel  in  our  literary  an 
nals,  a  scene  to  be  always  treasured  in  the  memory  for  its 
picturesqueness  and  its  inspiration.  What  crowded  and  breath 
less  aisles,  what  windows  clustering  with  eager  heads,  what 
enthusiasm  of  approval,  what  grim  silence  of  foregone  dis 
sent  !"' 

Dr.  Holmes  records  in  his  Life  of  Emerson  that  rarely  has 
any  one  of  the  annual  addresses  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society  been  listened  to  with  such  profound  attention  and 
interest.  He  spoke  of  it  as  "  Our  intellectual  Declaration  of 
Independence. ' ' 

'  *  Nothing  like  it  had  been  heard  in  the  halls  of  Harvard 
since  Samuel  Adams  supported  the  affirmative  of  the  question, 
« Whether  it  be  lawful  to  trust  the  chief  magistrate,  if  the 
commonwealth  cannot  otherwise  be  preserved.'  It  was  easy 
to  find  fault  with  an  expression  here  and  there.  The  dignity, 
not  to  say  the  formality  of  an  academic  assembly,  was  startled 
by  the  realism  that  looked  for  the  infinite  in  <  the  meal  in  the 
firkin  ;  the  milk  in  the  pan.'  They  could  understand  the 
deep  thoughts  suggested  by  'the  meanest  flower  that  blows/ 
but  these  domestic  illustrations  had  a  kind  of  nursery  homeli- 
i  Essay  on  Thoreau,  My  Study  Window*. 


416  NOTES 

ness  about  them  which  the  grave  professors  and  sedate  clergy 
men  were  unused  to  expect  on  so  stately  an  occasion.  But 
the  young  men  went  out  from  it  as  if  a  prophet  had  been 
proclaiming  to  them,  «  Thus  saith  the  Lord. '  No  listener  ever 
forgot  that  address,  and  among  all  the  noble  utterances  of  the 
speaker  it  may  be  questioned  if  one  ever  contained  more  truth 
in  language  more  like  that  of  immediate  inspiration." 

Carlyle  wrote  to  Emerson  about  the  oration:  "  My  friend  ! 
you  know  not  what  you  have  done  for  me  there.  .  .  .  Lo, 
out  of  the  West  comes  a  clear  utterance,  clearly  recognizable 
as  a  man' s  voice,  and  I  have  a  kinsman  and  brother  :  God 
be  thanked  for  it.  I  could  have  wept  to  read  that  speech  ;  the 
clear  high  melody  of  it  went  tingling  through  my  heart.  .  .  . 
Miss  Martineau  tells  me,  '  Some  say  it  is  inspired,  some  say  it 
is  mad.'  Exactly  so  ;  no  say  could  be  suitabler.  But  for  you, 
my  dear  friend,  I  say  and  pray  heartily  :  May  God  grant  you 
strength;  for  you  have  a  fearful  work  to  do!  Fearful  I  call  it ; 
and  yet  it  is  great,  and  the  greatest." 

Page  8l,  note  I.  In  the  opening  passages  of  an  editorial 
paper  in  the  Dial  (April,  1843),  "Europe  and  European 
Books,"  Mr.  Emerson  speaks  of  these  as  still  dominant  here, 
but  prophesies  thus:  "  This  powerful  star,  it  is  thought,  will 
soon  culminate  and  descend,  and  the  impending  reduction  of 
the  Transatlantic  excess  of  influence  ...  is  already  a  matter 
of  easy  and  frequent  computation.  Our  eyes  will  be  turned 
westward  and  a  new  and  stronger  tone  of  literature  will  result. 
The  Kentucky  stump-oratory,  the  exploits  of  Boone  and  David 
Crockett,  the  journals  of  western  pioneers,  agriculturalists,  and 
socialists,  and  the  letters  of  Jack  Downing,  are  genuine  growths 
which  are  sought  with  avidity  in  Europe,  where  our  European- 
like  books  are  of  no  value."  He  further  says  that  the  moving 


NOTES  417 

centre  of  population  and  property  of  the  English  race  will  in 
time  "  certainly  fall  within  the  American  coast,  so  that  the 
writers  of  the  English  tongue  shall  write  to  the  American  and 
not  to  the  island  public,  and  then  shall  the  great  Yankee  be 
born." 

In  editing  this  paper  for  Natural  History  of  Intellect  Mr. 
Cabot  omitted  the  first  three  pages. 

Page  82,  note  I .  In  the  "  Symposium  "  of  Plato  is  a  ver 
sion  of  this  fable,  but  in  his  Introduction  to  Professor  Good 
win's  edition  of  Plutarch's  Morals,  Mr.  Emerson  says,  — 
"  What  noble  words  we  owe  to  him  !  '  God  divided  man 
into  men  that  they  might  help  each  other.'  '  This  idea, 
differently  expressed,  is  found  in  the  chapter  "  Of  Brotherly 
Love"  in  the  Morals,  vol.  iii.  p.  37. 

Page  84,  note  I. 

The  horseman  serves  the  horse,  etc. 

"  Ode  inscribed  to  W.  H.  Channing, "  Poems. 

Page  £5,  note  I. 

Line  in  nature  is  not  found; 

Unit  and  universe  are  round; 

In  vain  produced,  all  rays  return,  etc. 

"Uriel,"  Poems. 

Page  86,  note  I.  In  this  address,  and  throughout  the 
Essays,  and  equally  the  Poems,  are  evidences  of  Mr.  Em 
erson's  reading  in  the  works  of  the  Masters  of  Science, 
—  Newton,  Laplace,  Hunter,  Linnaeus,  Lamarck,  Herschel, 
Owen,  Lyell,  Faraday,  —  and  his  use  of  their  facts  on  an 
other  plane. 

Page  86,  note  2.     In  one  of  the  Journals,  Mr.  Emerson 


4i  8  NOTES 

quotes  a  French  author's  mot :  "  Whether  or  no  there  be  a 
God,  it  is  certain  that  there  will  be. ' ' 

Page  88,  note  I.  This  recalls  the  definition  of  Art  as 
"Nature  passed  through  the  alembic  of  man,"  in  Nature, 
chapter  iii. 

Page  89,  note  I.  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Lowell,  three 
young  men  at  that  epoch,  who  set  an  example  to  American 
scholars  of  independence  in  thought  and  originality  in  ex 
pression,  spent  much  of  their  time  during  their  college  terms 
exploring  and  reading  in  the  Library  at  the  expense  of  the 
prescribed  curriculum,  thereby  incurring  censure  at  the  time. 

Page  pi,  note  I.  All  the  influence  Mr.  Emerson  hoped 
to  exert  on  others  was  to  show  them  the  right  of  the  spirit 
and  the  intellect  to  the  same  freedom  as  was  claimed  for  the 
body.  In  his  Journal  for  1856  he  writes  :  "I  have  been 
writing  and  speaking  what  were  once  called  novelties  for 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  and  have  not  now  one  disciple." 
The  would-be  disciple  must  go  to  the  fountain  of  truth  open 
in  himself  to  every  man,  and  might  well  get  a  more  gener 
ous  draught  than  he. 

Compare  his  poem  "  £tienne  de  la  Boece." 

Page  pj,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  followed  his  counsel  to 
the  scholar  to  "read  a  little  proudly."  He  soon  found  in  a 
book  the  passages  written  for  him  and  lightly  passed  over  the 
others. 

Page  95,  note  I.  In  the  addresses  called  "  The  Man  of 
Letters"  and  "The  Scholar,"  which  are  included*  in  Lec 
tures  and  Biographical  Sketches,  as  well  as  in  this  speech,  Mr. 
Emerson  steadily  holds  up  to  the  scholar  the  duty  of  active 
and  brave  manhood  especially  imposed  upon  him  by  his  privi 
leged  lot. 


NOTES  419 

Page  p5,  note  2.     The  "other  me  "  implies  a  quite  dif 
ferent  view  from  the  "  Non  Ego"  of  the  metaphysician. 
Page  p8,  note  I. 

What  prizes  the  town  and  tower  ? 
Only  what  the  pine-tree  yields,  etc. 

«'  Woodnotes,"  II.,  Poems. 

Page  103,  note  I. 

Who  telleth  one  of  my  secrets 
Is  master  of  all  I  am. 

"The  Sphinx,"  Poems. 

Page  1 06,  note  I.  In  an  address  delivered  before  the 
Anti-slavery  Society  in  New  York,  March  7,  1854,  Mr. 
Emerson  said  that  one  comes  at  last  to  learn  "  that  self- 
reliance,  the  height  and  perfection  of  man,  is  reliance  on  God." 
This  sentence  is  the  reconciliation  of  the  essays  on  "  Self- 
Reliance "  and  "  The  Over-Soul." 

Page  108,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  in  his  Journal 
after  this  oration  :  "  It  was  the  happiest  turn  to  my  old 
thrum  which.  Charles  Henry  Warren  gave  as  a  toast  at  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  dinner:  •  Mr.  President,'  he  said,  '  I  suppose 
all  know  where  the  orator  comes  from  ;  and  I  suppose  all 
know  what  he  has  said.  I  give  you  —  the  Spirit  of  Concord 
—  it  makes  us  all  of  one  mind. '  ' 

Page  112,  note  I .  Mr.  Emerson  devotes  a  chapter  to 
Swedenborg,  the  Mystic,  in  Representative  Men. 

Page  njt  note  Jr.  The  writings  of  Pestalozzi,  the  earnest 
Swiss  reformer,  whose  teachings  have  wrought  so  much  in  the 
improvement  in  education  in  Europe  and  America,  had  begun 
to  be  read  in  America.  Pestalozzi' s  beneficent  course  was 
dogged  through  life  by  apparent  failures,  partly  due  to  lack  of 


420  NOTES 

administrative  ability  in  himself,  largely  to  the  condition  of 
Switzerland  during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  Mr.  Emerson's 
friend,  Mr.  Alcott,  in  1825,  when  he  knew  little  of  Pesta- 
lozzi,  independently  introduced  a  very  similar  system  into  his 
village  school  at  Cheshire,  and  later  in  Boston. 

Page  115,  note  i.    This  sentence  might  well  stand  as  a 
prophecy  of  much  of  Mr.  Emerson's  own  history. 


ADDRESS   TO    THE    SENIOR    CLASS    OF   THE 
DIVINITY   SCHOOL 

This  address  was  given  by  Mr.  Emerson  to  the  Seniors 
in  the  Divinity  School  in  Cambridge  at  their  request.  The 
professors  in  charge  of  the  school  had  no  official  part  in  the 
choice  of  a  speaker,  and  therefore  were  not  responsible  for 
his  opinions,  as,  after  the  address,  they  clearly  made  known. 
Mr.  Emerson's  journals  for  the  year  preceding  its  delivery 
contain  many  expressions  of  disappointment  in  the  preach 
ing  which  he,  then  a  regular  and  hopeful  attendant,  heard. 
In  the  rugged  and  eloquent  prayer  and  preaching  of  f<  Fa 
ther  Taylor"  at  the  Sailors'  Bethel,  however,  he  delighted,1 
and  spoke  of  him  as  "the  Shakspeare  of  the  sailor  and  the 
poor." 

The  address  was  given  in  the  middle  of  July.  On  March 
1 4th,  he  wrote  in  his  Journal  :  — 

"  There  is  no  better  subject  for  effective  writing  than  the 
clergy.  I  ought  to  sit  and  think,  and  then  write  a  discourse 

1  Rev.  Edward  T.  Taylor,  once  a  seaman,  later  a  Methodist  preacher. 
A  passage  from  Mr.  Emerson's  diary  expressing  his  admiration  for  this 
"  Wonderful  Man"  is  printed  in  full  in  Mr.  Cabot's  Memoir,  vol.  i.  p. 
3*7- 


NOTES  421 

to  the  American  clergy,  showing  them  the  ugliness  and  un 
profitableness  of  theology  and  churches  at  this  day,  and  the 
glory  and  sweetness  of  the  moral  nature  out  of  whose  pale  they 
are  almost  wholly  shut." 

The  opportunity  to  free  his  mind  soon  came.  He  was 
approached  by  some  youths  from  the  Divinity  School  —  proba 
bly  a  committee  to  invite  him  to  make  the  Annual  Address. 

Journal,  ist  April.  "  The  Divinity  School  youths  wished  to 
talk  with  me  concerning  Theism.  I  went  rather  heavy-hearted, 
for  I  always  find  that  my  views  chill  or  shock  people  at  the 
first  opening.  But  the  conversation  went  well,  and  I  came 
away  cheered.  I  told  them  that  the  preacher  should  be  a  poet 
smit  with  the  love  of  the  harmonies  of  moral  nature:  and 
yet  look  at  the  Unitarian  Association  and  see  if  its  aspect  is 
poetic.  They  all  smiled  No.  A  minister,  nowadays,  is  plain 
est  prose,  the  prose  of  prose.  He  is  a  warming-pan  ...  at 
sick  beds  and  rheumatic  souls,  and  the  fire  of  the  minstrel's 
eye,  and  the  vivacity  of  his  word  is  exchanged  for  intense 
grumbling  enunciation  of  the  Cambridge  sort,  and  for  Scrip 
ture  phraseology." 

Although  he  knew  that  what  he  should  say  must  needs 
shock  many  of  the  elder  clergy,  because,  tried  by  his  stand 
ards,  they  were  found  wanting,  it  seemed  a  clear  duty  that 
had  come  to  him  to  open  the  minds  of  these  young  apostles 
to  the  great  possibilities  of  their  calling. 

The  address  provoked  a  great  reaction.  The  authorities 
of  the  school  publicly  washed  their  hands  of  all  complicity  in 
the  occasion.  Professor  Andrews  Norton,  a  man  of  great 
worth  and  weight  among  the  more  liberal  clergy  of  the  day, 
strongly  attacked  the  views  of  Emerson  in  the  Boston  Adver 
tiser,  as  making  light  of  revealed  Christianity  and  nearly  ap 
proaching  atheism.  Mr.  Emerson's  revered  friend  with  whom 


422  NOTES 

he  had  been  associated  in  the  Second  Church,  Rev.  Henry 
Ware,  then  a  professor  in  the  Divinity  School,  felt  that  such 
a  doctrine  as  that  "  the  soul  knows  no  persons  "  must  be 
resisted,  and  soon  after  preached  a  sermon  to  the  school  on 
this  and  other  points.  He  sent  the  sermon  to  his  former  col 
league  with  a  kind  letter,  wishing  that  he  be  not  understood 
as  attacking  the  new  views  as  Emerson's,  not  being  perfectly 
aware  of  the  precise  nature  of  his  opinions,  or  the  arguments 
by  which  they  might  be  justified  to  his  mind.  Mr.  Cabot  in 
his  Memoir  says  :  — 

"  Emerson  replied  in  a  letter  which  has  often  been  quoted,1 
as  it  deserves  to  be,  for  the  entire  serenity  of  temper  it  dis 
plays,  but  also  as  a  confession  that  he  was  incapable  of  reason 
ing.  There  is  no  one,  he  says,  less  willing  or  less  able  to  be 
polemic.  '  I  could  not  possibly  give  you  one  of  the  "  argu 
ments  ' '  you  cruelly  hint  at  on  which  any  doctrine  of  mine 
stands  ;  for  I  do  not  know  what  arguments  mean  in  reference 
to  any  expression  of  a  thought.'  He  was  trying  to  rouse  his 
contemporaries  to  a  livelier  sense  of  the  facts  of  religion,  and 
this  could  never  be  done  by  argument." 

In  an  early  poem,  printed  after  his  death,  in  the  Appendix 
to  the  Poems ,  "The  Bohemian  Hymn,"  which  is  referred  to 
elsewhere  in  these  notes,  Emerson's  thought  of  the  inadequacy 
of  man  to  express  Deity  is  embodied.  He  said  :  «« I  deny  per 
sonality  to  God  because  it  is  too  little,  not  too  much.  Life, 
personal  life,  is  faint  and  cold  to  the  energy  of  God.  For 
Reason  and  Love  and  Beauty,  or  that  which  is  all  these,  —  it 
is  life  of  life,  the  reason  of  reason,  the  love  of  love. ' '  Mr. 

i  The  correspondence  between  these  friends,  which  does  honor  to  both,  is 
printed  in  full  in  an  Appendix  to  Mr.  Cabot's  Memoir  of  Emerson. 


NOTES  423 

Cabot  explains  that  "  what  he  means  by  personality  seems 
to  be  nothing  more  than  limitation  to  an  individual.  .  .  .  He 
did  not  deny  self-consciousness  to  the  Supreme  Being."  He 
did  not  want  the  informing  Soul  of  the  universe  shut  up  in 
Jehovah. 

Though  much  abhorrence  or  disavowal  of  the  views  of  this 
address  was  publicly  expressed,  not  all  the  hearers  were 
troubled.  Miss  Elizabeth  Peabody,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Alex 
ander  Ireland,  of  Manchester,  England,  relates  that  "Dr. 
Channing  regarded  the  address  at  Divinity  Hall  as  an  entirely 
justifiable  and  needed  criticism  on  the  perfunctory  character 
of  service  creeping  over  the  Unitarian  churches  at  the  time. 
He  hailed  the  commotion  of  thought  it  stirred  up  as  a  sign 
that  « something  did  live  in  the  embers  '  of  that  spirit  which 
had  developed  Unitarianism  out  of  the  decaying  Puritan 
churches."  Mr.  Moncure  D.  Conway  tells  how  the  young 
Theodore  Parker  went  home  and  wrote  in  his  Journal :  "I 
shall  give  no  abstract,  so  beautiful,  so  just  and  terribly  sublime 
was  his  picture  of  the  church  in  its  present  condition.  My 
soul  is  roused,  and  this  week  I  shall  write  the  long-meditated 
sermons  on  the  state  of  the  church  and  the  duties  of  these 
times." 

In  the  circle  of  Boston  and  Cambridge  there  was  much  dis 
turbance  for  a  time,  and,  indeed,  nearly  thirty  years  passed  by 
before  it  was  felt  at  the  University  that  Mr.  Emerson  was  a 
safe  or  desirable  person  to  be  called  upon  to  take  any  active 
part  in  its  functions. 

In  the  controversy  at  the  time,  as  Dr.  Holmes  wittily 
says  :  "  Emerson  had  little  more  than  the  part  of  Patroclus 
when  the  Greeks  fought  over  his  body."  The  apparent  result 
of  his  address  must  have  been  somewhat  disappointing,  and 
the  temporary  notoriety  was  disagreeable  to  him.  He  had 


424  NOTES 

faithfully  delivered  his  message  ;  let  it  work  according  to  its 
truth.  He  withdrew  himself  to  Concord  to  work  at  his  other 
tasks. 

The  poem  "  Uriel,"  if  carefully  read,  will  be  seen  to  be  an 
account,  sublimed  and  impersonal,  but  accurate  in  detail,  of 
this  experience  when  a  soul,  looking,  from  a  commanding  cen 
tral  point,  like  the  Archangel  of  the  Sun,  sees  and  announces 
a  truth,  new  and  astounding  to  those  whose  view,  from  their 
position,  is  more  limited  and  eccentric,  so  that  they  cannot  see 
all  things  moving  and  returning  in  their  vast  orbits  in  accord 
ance  with  the  beautiful  law  of  the  Universe. 

On  one  account  only  had  Mr.  Emerson  to  take  immediate 
action,  involving  disappointment  because  of  the  reception  of 
his  address.  He  had  at  this  time  great  hopes  that  Carlyle 
would  come  to  America,  perhaps  even  to  stay,  and  now  had 
to  urge  his  friend  by  no  means  to  come  until  this  "  foolish 
clamor  be  overblown  "  about  his  own  "infidelity/'  "pan 
theism,"  or  "atheism;"  mentioning,  however,  that  if  he 
(Emerson)  lived,  his  "  neighbors  must  look  for  a  great  many 
more  shocks,  and  perhaps  harder  to  bear." 

Page  121,  note  I.  The  omnipotence  and  omnipresence 
of  the  perfect  law,  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical,  an  insepa 
rable  trinity,  is  everywhere  insisted  on  by  Mr.  Emerson. 
"The  universe  is  moral."  In  the  end  of  "The  Poet" 
(^Poems,  Appendix),  the  sweetness  of  the  Law  is  celebrated. 
See  also  the  motto  "Worship,"  Poems:  — 

More  near  than  aught  thou  callest  thine  own, 
Yet,  greeted  in  another's  eyes, 
Disconcerts  with  glad  surprise,  etc. 


NOTES  425 

Page  122,  note  I.  This  passage,  probably  a  very  star 
tling  one  to  the  clergymen  present,  has  in  it  the  doctrine  to  be 
found  in  "The  Over-Soul,"  Essays,  First  Series. 

Page  122,  note  2.  Compare  the  lines  on  humility  from 
Keats' s  "Hyperion,"  quoted  in  "The  Sovereignty  of 
Ethics,"  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches  :  — 

One  avenue  was  shaded  from  thine  eyes 
Through  which  I  wandered  to  eternal  truth. 

Page  I2J,  note  I.  Emerson's  favorite  doctrine  of  Com 
pensation.  See  also  "Worship"  in  Poems :  — 

This  is  he  men  miscall  Fate,  etc. 

Page  124,  note  I.  Hence  he  did  not  attack  others'  be 
lief,  sure  that  the  good  when  rightly  shown,  without  irritating 
argument  or  ridicule,  would  displace  the  evil. 

Whispered  the  Muse  in  Saadi's  cot,  etc. 

"  Saadi,"  Poems. 

Page  124,  note  2. 

Around  the  man  who  seeks  a  noble  end, 
Not  angels  but  divinities  attend. 

"Fragments  on  Life,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  125,  note  i.  Suggesting  the  lines  in  Wordsworth's 
"Ode  to  Duty:"  - 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong  ; 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens  through  thee  are  fresh  and 
strong. 


426  NOTES 

Page  125,  note  2.  To  the  same  purpose  as  the  stanza 
beginning  ;  — 

Brother,  sweeter  is  the  Law 

Than  all  the  grace  Love  ever  saw,  etc. 

"The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  126,  note  I.  In  Representative  Men  the  debt  of 
Plato  to  the  ancient  wisdom  of  the  East  is  spoken  of.  Emer 
son  acknowledged  the  same.  His  mind  prepared  for  them 
by  Plato  and  the  Neo-Platonists,  he  early  found  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Orient,  and,  later,  delighted  in  their  poets,  especially 
Saadi  and  Hafiz  ;  so  much  in '  the  first,  that  in  several  of  his 
poems  he  adopted  Saadi  or  Seyd  as  a  generic  name  for  the 
Poet. 

Page  I2f,  note  I.  "The  divine  nature/'  that  is,  the 
over-soul,  the  divine  element  shared  in  measure  by  every  soul. 
The  regeneration  of  the  Calvinist  was  instantaneous;  the  regen 
eration  which  Emerson  found  was  continuous,  if  man  would 
only  open  the  gates  of  his  soul  to  the  flood  of  Spirit. 

Ever  the  words  of  the  Gods  resound, 
But  the  porches  of  man's  ear 
Seldom  in  this  low  life!s  round 
Are  unsealed  that  he  may  hear. 

"My  Garden,"  Poems. 
Page  I2(}y  note  i. 

For  what  need  I  of  Book  or  priest,  etc. 

"  Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  130,  note  I.  Mr.  Cabot  in  his  Memoir  says  that 
Mr.  Emerson  "  was  surprised  to  find  his  intention  so  far  mis 
taken  as  to  leave  many  of  his  Unitarian  brethren  to  suppose 
that  he  was  trying  to  belittle  the  character  of  Jesus.  Far 


NOTES  427 

from  this,  he  was  trying  to  place  the  reverence  for  Jesus  upon 
its  true  ground,  out  of  reach  of  the  reaction  that  was  sure  to 
set  in  when  the  claim  of  exclusive  revelation  should  lose  its 
force."  Mr.  Cabot  further  mentions  that  Miss  Elizabeth  Pea- 
body  said  in  her  Reminiscences  of  Dr.  Channing  that  a  pas 
sage  to  this  effect  was  omitted  by  Mr.  Emerson  for  want  of 
time  in  the  reading  of  the  address,  and  she  urged  him  to  re 
store  it  in  the  printing,  but  that  he  on  reflection  preferred  to 
let  the  paper  stand  as  it  was  read.  He  would  not  explain  it 
by  what  might  seem  an  afterthought. 

Miss  Peabody  urged  him  at  least  to  put  a  capital  F  to  the 
"friend  of  man,"  but  Mr.  Emerson  answered,  "  If  I  did 
so,  they  would  all  go  to  sleep." 

Page  13 1  y  note  I.  Wordsworth,  Miscellaneous  Sonnets, 
"  The  world  is  too  much  with  us." 

Page  132 y  note  i.  The  sublimed  doctrine  of  Self- Reli 
ance. 

Page  133 y  note  I. 

Love's  hearts  are  faithful,  but  not  fond,  etc, 

"The  Celestial  Love,"  Poems. 

Page  I33y  note  2.  To  call  the  prophets  and  saints  Bards 
was  to  Emerson  giving  them  their  due  honor,  but,  perhaps, 
might  seem  to  some  of  his  clerical  hearers  making  fiddlers  of 
them.  In  the  passage  from  the  Journal,  April  I,  quoted  in 
the  introductory  note  to  this  address,  he  spoke  of  his  wish  to 
make  a  preacher  a  true  poet. 

Page  I34y  note  I.  This  is  told  in  verse  in  "  The  Prob 
lem,"  Poems. 

Page  135 y  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  once  spoke  in  his  Jour 
nal  of  "The  corpse-cold  Unitarianism  of  Brattle  Street." 


428  NOTES 

Page  137,  note  i. 

The  Dervish  whined  to  Seyd, 

Thou  didst  not  tarry  while  I  prayed,  etc. 

"The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Journal,  1837.  "  Among  provocations  the  next  best  thing 
to  good  preaching  is  bad  preaching.  I  have  even  more 
thoughts  during  or  enduring  it  than  at  other  times." 

Page  138,  note  I.  (<  Day  creeps  after  day,  each  full  of 
facts,  dull,  strange,  despised  things  that  we  cannot  enough 
despise.  .  .  .  And  presently  the  aroused  intellect  finds  gold 
and  gems  in  one  of  these  scorned  facts,  —  then  finds  that  the 
day  of  facts  is  a  rock  of  diamonds  ;  that  a  fact  is  an  Epiph 
any  of  God."  —  "Education,"  Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches. 

Page  142,  note  I.  The  same  thoughts  in  "  The  Sphinx," 
Poems. 

Page  145,  note  I.  The  text  "  For  what  is  a  man  profited 
if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul :  or  what 
shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul,"  stated  freshly. 

Page  148)  note  I.  "Give  all  to  Love,"  fourth  stanza, 
Poems. 

Page  I$O,  note  I.  Journal,  November,  1839.  "The  Sab 
bath  is  my  best  debt  to  the  Past  and  binds  me  to  some  grati 
tude  still.  It  brings  me  that  frankincense  out  of  a  sacred 
antiquity." 

Page  l$l,  note  I.  In  parting  from  his  people  of  the  Sec 
ond  Church,  Mr.  Emerson  thus  indicated  his  hope  to  continue 
through  life  to  be  a  preacher  of  the  truth.  Of  the  minister's 
office  he  said:  "It  has  many  duties  for  which  I  am  feebly 
qualified.  It  has  some  that  it  will  always  be  my  delight  to 
discharge  according  to  my  ability,  wherever  I  exist.  And 


NOTES  429 

whilst  the  recollection  of  its  claims  oppresses  me  with  a  sense 
of  my  unworthiness,  I  am  consoled  by  the  hope  that  no  time 
and  no  change  can  deprive  me  of  the  satisfaction  of  pursuing 
and  exercising  its  highest  functions." 
Page  757,  note  2. 

Line  in  nature  is  not  found  ; 

Unit  and  universe  are  round  : 

In  vain  produced,  all  rays  return  ; 

Evil  will  bless,  and  ice  will  burn. 

-Uriel,"  Poems. 

See  also  the  second  paragraph  in  this  address,  and  the  chap 
ter  "Circles"  in  Essays,  First  Series. 

LITERARY   ETHICS 

Mr.  Emerson,  writing  to  his  friend  Carlyle,  August  6, 
1838,  thanking  him  for  his  "friendliest  seeking  of  friends  for 
the  poor  oration  "  ("The  American  Scholar")  says:  "I 
have  written  and  read  a  kind  of  sermon  to  the  Senior  Class 
of  our  Cambridge  Theological  School  a  fortnight  ago;  and  an 
address  to  the  Literary  Societies  of  Dartmouth  College,  for 
though  I  hate  American  pleniloquence,  I  cannot  easily  say  No 
to  young  men  who  bid  me  speak  also.  .  .  .  The  first,  I 
hear,  is  very  offensive.  I  will  now  try  to  hold  my  tongue  till 
next  winter." 

The  Dartmouth  address  followed  with  but  nine  days'  in 
terval  that  to  the  Cambridge  Divinity  students.  Newspapers 
then  had  only  local  circulation,  and  there  was  no  Northern 
railroad  ;  indeed  it  was  a  two  days'  journey  by  stage  which 
Mr.  Emerson  made  in  company  with  a  friend  and  neighbor, 
John  Keyes,  Esq.  (a  graduate  of  Dartmouth),  and  his  son,  to 


43°  NOTES 

reach  Hanover.  «« If  any  rumor  of  the  former  discourse,"  said 
Dr.  Holmes,  "had  reached  Dartmouth,  the  audience  must 
have  been  prepared  for  a  much  more  startling  performance 
than  that  to  which  they  listened.  The  bold  avowal  which 
fluttered  the  dovecotes  of  Cambridge  would  have  sounded 
like  the  crash  of  doom  to  the  cautious  old  tenants  of  the  Han 
over  aviary.  If  there  were  any  drops  of  false  or  question 
able  doctrine  in  the  silver  shower  of  eloquence  under  which 
they  had  been  sitting,  the  plumage  of  orthodoxy  glistened 
with  unctuous  repellents,  and  a  shake  or  two  on  coming  out 
of  church  left  the  sturdy  old  dogmatists  as  dry  as  ever.  Those 
who  remember  the  Dartmouth  College  of  that  day  cannot  help 
smiling  at  the  thought  of  the  contrast  in  the  way  of  thinking 
between  the  speaker  and  the  larger  part,  or  at  least  the  older 
part,  of  his  audience.  .  .  .  Perhaps,  however,  the  extreme 
difference  between  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Mr.  Emer 
son  and  the  endemic  orthodoxy  of  that  place  and  time  was  too 
great  for  any  hostile  feelings  to  be  awakened  by  the  sweet- 
voiced  and  peaceful-mannered  speaker." 

Page  15$,  note  I.  This  opening  passage  was  no  formal 
compliment,  but  rather  a  confidential  and  characteristic  utter 
ance  by  Mr.  Emerson  to  the  young  scholars  of  his  interest 
in  them,  and  of  his  feeling,  elsewhere  expressed,  that  "  the 
Scholar  has  drawn  the  white  lot  in  life." 

Page  155,  note  2.  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  in  his  Journal 
of  1833,  speaking  of  his  brother,  "Charles's  naif  censure 
last  night  provoked  me  to  show  him  a  fact,  apparently  entirely 
new  to  him,  that  my  entire  success,  such  as  it  is,  is  composed 
wholly  of  particular  failures,  every  public  work  of  mine  of  the 
least  importance  having  been,  probably  without  exception, 
noted  at  the  time  as  a  failure." 


NOTES  431 

Page  I$8,  note  i.  In  another  essay,  Mr.  Emerson  thus 
asserts  his  belief:  "He  did  not  make  his  thought  :  no,  the 
thought  made  him,  and  the  sun  and  the  stars  also." 

Page  159,  note  I.  In  the  Journal,  from  which  this  sen 
tence  comes,  «'  The  lovely  invention  of  the  dew  *'  is  the  ex 
pression.  The  same  simile  is  found  in  the  early  poem  "  Sun 
rise  "  in  Poems,  t(  Fragments  on  Nature." 

Page  160,  note  I.  Mr.  Alexander  Ireland  of  Manches 
ter,  England,  in  the  motto  to  his  book  on  Emerson,  calls 
attention  to  the  following  passage  in  Plutarch's  Life  of  Cicero, 
telling  of  his  consulting  the  oracle  at  Delphi,  in  his  youth. 
"  Upon  his  inquiring  by  what  means  he  might  rise  to  the 
greatest  glory,  the  priestess  bade  him  '  follow  nature  and  not 
take  the  opinion  of  the  multitude  for  his  guide  in  life.'  J 

Page  i6o>  note  2.  Mr.  Emerson  was  of  the  opinion  of 
that  admirable  American  officer,  the  late  General  Crook, 
who  told  his  officers  that  he  thought  little  of  the  effect  of  gen 
eral  orders,  saying,  "  Example  is  the  best  general  order,"  and 
living  up  to  his  belief.  Mr.  Emerson  greatly  valued  biogra 
phies,  from  Plutarch  down,  and  constantly  illustrated  his  lec 
tures  by  anecdotes. 

Page  1 60,  note  J.  His  interest  in  Cud  worth  was  not  so 
much  in  the  views  of  the  author,  but  in  Plato,  whom  he  first 
came  upon  in  Cudworth's  pages,  when  a  boy  in  college.  The 
same  is  probably  true  of  Tennemann,  whose  writings  on  Plato 
and  other  philosophers  were  accessible  to  him  in  translations. 

Page  160,  note  4.  The  poetical  speculations  and  beliefs 
of  the  ancient  philosophers  were  as  attractive  to  him  as  the 
systems  of  the  modern  metaphysicians  were  uninteresting.  It 
was  the  freedom  and  beauty  of  the  Law,  as  reported  by  the 
prophets  and  singers,  that  he  cared  for.  The  dogmatic  dis 
tinctions  of  the  system-makers  seemed  unprofitable  to  him. 


432  NOTES 

Page  i6iy  note  i .  In  a  letter,  when  a  Divinity  student, 
to  his  spiritual  confessor,  his  Aunt  Mary  Moody  Emerson 
(for  his  account  of  whom  see  Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches},  he  called  himself  "Ever  the  Dupe  of  Hope." 
Later  in  life,  he  would  hardly  have  said  "  dupe."  He  liked 
to  read  in  Plutarch  of  Bias's  question  and  answer:  "How 
do  the  wise  differ  from  the  unwise  ?  In  a  good  hope." 

Page  162,  note  I. 

I  see  it  all  now  ;  when  I  wanted  a  king 

'Twas  the  kingship  that  lacked  in  myself  I  was  seeking. 

Lowell,  "  Two  Scenes  in  the  Life  of  Blondel." 

Page  163,  note  I. 

This  passing  moment  is  an  edifice 
Which  the  Omnipotent  cannot  rebuild. 

"  Fragments  on  Life,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  166,  note  I.  At  village  meetings  for  good  causes, 
as  the  old  Lyceum,  in  which  debates  were  sometimes  held,  or 
those  stirring  ones  in  the  days  of  the  Antislavery  and  Free 
State  movements,  Mr.  Emerson  always  attended,  and  heard 
with  respect  and  often  admired  the  good  and  forcible  speak 
ing  of  his  neighbors.  It  was  especially  so  at  town  meetings. 

Journal.  "  The  most  hard-fisted,  disagreeably  restless, 
thought-paralyzing  companion  sometimes  turns  out  in  the 
town-meeting  to  be  a  fluent,  various,  and  effective  orator. 
Now  I  find  what  all  that  excess  of  power  which  chafed  and 

fretted  me  so  much  in was  for."  Extempore  speech 

was  always  very  difficult  for  him. 

Page  1 68,  note  i. 

In  dreamy  woods  what  thoughts  abound 
That  elsewhere  never  poet  found; 


NOTES  433 

Here  voices  ring,  and  pictures  burn, 
And  grace  on  grace  where'er  I  turn. 

Fragments  from  Notebook. 

Page  IJ2,  note  I.  This  passage  shows  the  thought  which 
justified  to  Mr.  Emerson  his  plan  of  writing  on  The  Natural 
Method  of  Mental  Philosophy,  which  late  in  his  life  was 
partially  accomplished  in  his  philosophy  courses  at  Cambridge 
(see  Natural  History  of  Intellect}.  Mr.  Cabot  says  in  his 
Memoir:  *'  He  had  long  cherished  the  thought  of  a  more 
fruitful  method  for  the  study  of  the  mind  founded  on  the 
parallelism  of  the  mental  laws  with  the  laws  of  external  na 
ture." 

Page  172,  note  2.  Heracleitus's  Hdvra  p€t,  the  fluidity 
of  all  things,  and  the  reappearance  of  the  one  in  protean  dis 
guises.  These  doctrines  appear  everywhere  in  Emerson's 
prose  and  verse. 

Page  173,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  used  to  say,  "  My 
doom  and  my  strength  is  to  be  solitary."  The  gifts  of  soli 
tude  for  the  scholar  are  told  in  "  Woodnotes,"  II.,  in  the 
Poems. 

Page  175,  note  I.  The  necessity  of  the  contact  with  the 
world  and  doing  one's  part  there,  of  action  alternating  with 
thought,  and  the  acquiring  of  facts  to  translate  into  thought, 
is  urged  alike  in  the  early  and  later  writings. 

Page  182,  note  i.  Mr.  Emerson's  "lay  pulpit,"  the 
Lyceum  platform,  gave  such  a  character  as  this  paragraph  sug 
gests  to  his  essays,  which  were  first  delivered  in  country 
towns  and  frontier  settlements  all  over  the  North  and  West, 
as  well  as  before  cultivated  audiences  in  cities.  He  would  not 
write  down  to  his  audience,  but  had  faith  in  the  perception 
of  humble  people.  On  the  other  hand,  he  wrote  strong  Eng- 


434  NOTES 

lish  in   short  sentences,  and   in  delivery  introduced  frequent 
anecdotes  which  would  appeal  to  them,  as  they  always  did  to 
him.    Many  of  these  were  omitted  in  the  severe  pruning  of 
the  essays  for  publication. 
Page  186,  note  I. 

Ever  the  words  of  the  Gods  resound,  etc. 

"My  Garden,"  Poems. 

THE    METHOD    OF   NATURE 

In  July,  1841,  Mr.  Emerson  betook  himself  to  the  single 
hotel  by  the  beautiful  and  lonely  beach  at  Nantasket,  to  write 
this  oration. 

He  found  there  delicious  airs  and  sunniest  waters,  remind 
ing  him  of  the  Mediterranean,  as  he  wrote  to  his  brother, 
saying,  "  I  hoped  there  to  write  an  oration,  but  only  my 
outline  grew  larger  and  larger,  until  it  seemed  to  defy  all  possi 
bility  of  completion.  Desperate  of  success,  I  rushed  home 
again."  Mr.  Cabot  hints  that  in  the  oration  is  "  a  touch  of 
the  sea,  'inexact  and  boundless,'  yet  distinct  in  its  tone  of  sug 
gestion." 

In  his  letter  to  Carlyle,  Mr.  Emerson,  remembering  his 
friend's  constant  praise  of  Silence,  wrote  :  "As  usual  at  this 
season  of  the  year  I,  incorrigible  spouting  Yankee,  am  writing 
an  oration  to  deliver  to  the  boys  in  one  of  our  little  country 
colleges  nine  days  hence.  You  will  say  I  do  not  deserve  the  aid 
of  any  Muse.  O  but  if  you  knew  how  natural  it  is  to  me 
to  run  to  these  places !  Besides,  I  am  always  lured  on  by  the 
hope  of  saying  something  which  shall  stick  by  the  good  boys." 

Page  192,  note  I.  (From  the  letter  quoted  above. )  "  My 
whole  philosophy  —  which  is  very  real  —  teaches  acquies- 


NOTES  435 

cence  and  optimism.  Only  when  I  see  how  much  work  is  to 
be  done,  what  room  for  a  poet  —  for  any  spiritualist  —  in  this 
great,  intelligent,  sensual,  avaricious  America,  I  lament  my 
fumbling  ringers  and  stammering  tongue." 

Page  Ity3>  note  i .  Mr.  Emerson  would  have  rejoiced 
in  William  Morris's  word  about  a  work  of  industrial  art, 
that  it  should  be  "  a  joy  to  the  maker  as  well  as  the  user," 
and  that  the  cotton,  or  whatever,  would  be  the  better,  not 
worse. 

Page  195,  note  I.  To  him  spiritual  matters  were  out  of 
the  possibilities  of  argument.  There  was  no  gainsaying  the 
universal  goodness  or  wisdom  or  beauty.  It  was  either  per 
ceived  or  not  perceived.  He  said, .  with  Saint  Augustine, 
"  Wrangle  who  will,  I  will  wonder." 

Page  196,  note  I.  The  ways  were  full  of  "  monotones," 
as  Mr.  Emerson  called  them,  in  those  days.  Journal.  '« I  so 
readily  imputed  symmetry  to  my  fine  geniuses  in  perceiving 
their  excellence  in  some  insight.  How  could  I  doubt  that 
.  .  .  [each]  was  the  master  mind  which  in  some  act  he 
appeared  ?  No  ;  ...  in  new  conditions  he  was  inexpert, 
and  in  new  company  he  was  dumb.  The  revolving  light 
resembles  the  man  who  oscillates  from  insignificance  to 
glory." 

But  he  received  each  new  guest,  even  the  young  student 
or  the  visitors  of  his  children,  and  questioned  them  as  if 
he  thought  that  the  best  word  might  yet  come  from  their 
mouths. 

Page  199*  note  i.  It  was  indeed  as  hazardous  a  venture 
as  that  of  Empedocles  in  his  quoted  assertion  for  a  speaker  to 
say  in  the  presence  of  divines  and  professors,  at  a  New  Eng 
land  college  festival  in  those  days,  that  God  appeared  in  man  ; 
that  by  obedience  he  became  a  channel  through  which  deity 


436  NOTES 

was  poured  out  in  measure  on  the  earth.  Had  the  oration 
been  called  a  sermon  and  given  on  Sunday,  its  heresy  would 
have  been  challenged,  but,  as  often  happened,  Mr.  Emerson 
found  that  on  a  week-day  people  would  listen  even  with  plea 
sure  to  words  against  which  on  Sunday  they  would  have  been 
on  their  guard.  Any  lapse  in  the  speaker's  life  due  to  indul 
gence  of  the  lower  self  might  have  given  the  satisfaction  to 
the  theologians  that  the  casting  forth  by  JEtna.  of  the  sandal 
of  Empedocles  did  to  the  Sicilians. 

Page  200,  note  I.  The  ancient  doctrine  of  "  the  Flow 
ing  ' '  passing  into  the  modern  doctrine  of  Evolution. 

Page  201,  note  I. 

Line  in  Nature  is  not  found  ; 
Unit  and  universe  are  round,  etc. 

«  Uriel,'1  Poems. 

Page  2 O2,  note  i.  This  paragraph  and  much  that  follows 
is  rendered  poetically  in  "Woodnotes,"  II.,  in  the  verses 
beginning  :  — 

Hark,  in  thy  ear  I  will  tell  a  sign,  etc. 

Page  206,  note  I.  "  Here  is  another  of  those  almost  lyri 
cal  passages  which  seem  to  long  for  the  music  of  rhythm  and 
the  resonance  of  rhyme  :  'The  great  Pan  of  old,'  etc."  — 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  by  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes. 

Page  210,  note  I.  That  men  should  listen  in  solitude  for 
the  Voice,  should  obey  it,  and  report  its  message  exactly  to. 
others  was  Emerson's  chief  doctrine. 

Page  211,  note  I.  In  this  passage  he  makes  what  he  con 
sidered  the  distinction  between  genius  and  talent. 

Page  211,  note  2.      Compare  the  passage  in  the  Divinity 


NOTES  437 

School  Address  where  he  speaks   of  the  great   teachers  and 
prophets  as  bards.    The  common  preacher  argues  and  proses, 
the  true  poet  charms  and  uplifts. 
Page  213,  note  i. 

Stars  taunt  us  with  their  mystery. 

"The  World-Soul,"  Poems. 

Page  213,  note  2.  Mr.  Emerson  elsewhere  quotes  Plato 
as  saying:  "  The  man  who  is  master  of  himself  knocks  in  vain 
at  the  door  of  poetry." 

Page  214,  note  I.  Probably  quoted  from  Taylor's  trans 
lation  of  Proclus,  in  which  the  Chaldean  oracles  are  often 
referred  to. 

Page  220,  note  I.  The  respect  for  the  high  ideals  of  the 
men  who  planted  New  England,  who  brought  with  them  the 
spirit  of  Cromwell  and  of  Milton,  always  remained  with  Mr. 
Emerson.  The  fiery  faith  and  noble  asceticism  of  these  men 
and  women  living  in  the  presence  of  the  other  world,  out 
weighed  their  narrowness  and  sternness,  in  his  estimation.  He 
often  spoke  of  a  wish  to  write  the  story  of  Calvinism  in  New 
England,  but  did  not  do  so.  Yet  in  his  "  Historical  Discourse 
at  Concord"  {Miscellanies'),  the  "Historic  Notes  of  Life 
and  Letters  in  New  England"  {Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches),  and  the  essay  "Boston"  {Natural  History  of 
Intellect),  he  deals  with  the  subject,  as  also  in  the  Ad 
dress  to  the  New  England  Society  in  New  York  in  1870, 
which  has  been  recently  printed,  with  other  addresses,  by  that 
society. 

Page  222,  note  I.  AH  Ibn  Abu  Talib,  who  married  the 
daughter  of  Mahomet  and  became  caliph. 


438  NOTES 


MAN   THE   REFORMER 

The  Mechanics'  Apprentices'  Library  Association,  before 
which  this  Address  was  delivered,  is  mentioned  by  Mr.  Win- 
sor  in  his  Historic  Boston  as  doing  a  modest  work  with  its 
library  of  some  five  thousand  volumes  as  late  as  the  year 
1873- 

Page  22J,  note  I.  Compare  with  the  passage  at  the  be 
ginning  of  "  The  Over-Soul: "  "  We  give  up  the  past  to  the 
objector,  and  yet  we  hope.  .  .  .  We  grant  that  human  life 
is  mean,  but  how  did  we  find  out  that  it  was  mean  ?  " 

Page  22ty,  note  i.  A  stronger  statement  of  his  belief, 
which  appears  in  so  many  ways  in  the  prose  and  poems,  that 
a  thought  will  unsettle  the  solidest  seeming  facts ;  that  the 
scholar's  far  sight  recognizes  the  true  real. 

Page  2JO,  note  I.  Emerson  and  many  of  his  friends  and 
contemporaries  lived  to  see  their  ideas  and  reforms  eagerly 
claimed  by  the  men  of  the  church,  the  exchange,  or  the  forum 
who  had  rejected,  derided,  or  even  persecuted  them. 

Page  234,  note  I.  Mr.  Alcott  and  his  companions  in  the 
short  -  lived  Fruitlands  community  were  confronted  by  the 
dilemma  that  they  needed  land  for  their  social  experiment, 
yet  felt  that  land  could  not  be  rightfully  purchased;  so  they 
paid  money  to  "  redeem  from  human  ownership  "  their  acres 
of  unpromising  soil. 

Page  236,  note  I.  Only  a  few  months  before  the  delivery 
of  this  lecture,  the  community  at  Brook  Farm,  in  West  Rox- 
bury,  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  George  Ripley,  began  an 
effort  to  secure  for  each  member  the  benefits  of  labor  of  the 
body  and  mind,  and  for  the  community  the  advantages  of  divi- 


NOTES  439 

sion  of  labor.    See   "  Historic  Notes  of  Life  and  Letters  in 
New  England,"  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  237,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  had  neither  the  aptitude 
nor  the  training  for  carrying  on  a  farm,  or  even  a  large  garden, 
but,  especially  in  his  early  years  as  a  Concord  householder, 
he  took  some  care  of  his  garden,  and  preferably  of  his  orchard. 
But  in  household  matters  he  disliked  to  be  served  by  others,  espe 
cially  to  call  upon  servants.  He  liked  the  verse  from  Horace : 

At  mihi  succurrit  pro  Ganymede  manus 
(My  own  right  hand  my  cup-bearer  shall  be), 

and  a  proverb,  perhaps  from  the  Persian,  — 

The  king's  servant  is  the  king  himself. 

Page  238,  note  I.  His  respect  for  labor  was  great,  and 
is  told  in  Oriental  form  in  the  verses,  — 

Said  Saadi,  When  I  stood  before 
Hassan  the  camel-driver's  door,  etc. 
"Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  240,  note  i.  This  passage  suggests  the  lines  of 
George  Herbert  in  his  "  Church  Porch:  " — 

Some  great  estates  provide,  but  not 

A  mastering  mind  ;  so  both  are  lost  thereby. 

Page  248,  note  I.  A  motto  for  those  days  in  New  Eng 
land  might  have  been  the  words  put  in  Rob  Roy's  mouth  by 
Wordsworth  :  — 

Of  old  things  all  are  over  old, 

Of  good  things  none  are  good  enough  ; 
We  '11  show  that  we  can  help  to  frame 
A  world  of  other  stuff. 


440  NOTES 

Page  249,  note  i.  In  Mr.  John  Albee's  excellent  Re 
membrances  of  Emerson ,  speaking  of  the  many  young  men 
whom  "his  voice  reached  in  the  most  obscure  and  unex 
pected  places,"  he  says  that  Mr.  Emerson  "received  us  each 
and  all  with  his  unfailing  suavity  and  deference.  His  manner  to 
wards  young  men  ...  I  know  no  word  for  but  expectancy, 
as  if  the  world-problem  was  now  finally  to  be  solved,  and  we 
were  the  beardless  CEdipuses  for  whom  he  had  been  faithfully 
waiting.  .  .  .  His  magnanimous  spirit  soothed  and  reassured 
us,  and  to  the  little  we  brought  he  added  a  full  store,  inserting 
...  a  silver  cup  in  our  coarse  sacks  of  common  grain,  so 
that  we  returned  to  our  brethren  with  gladness  and  praise." 

Page  251,  note  i.  Omar  the  caliph,  Mahomet's  distant 
cousin  and  second  successor,  who,  first  warring  against  him, 
later  became  converted.  During  his  reign  the  Moslems  were 
everywhere  victorious.  He  was  rigorously  ascetic  in  his  hab 
its.  This  passage  suggests  two  recent  parallels,  —  the  habit 
o*f  General  Gordon  of  going  into  the  bloody  battles  of  the 
Chinese  war  with  only  a  cane  in  his  hand,  and  the  aston 
ishing  feat  of  the  religious  fanatics,  followers  of  the  Mahdi, 
who,  armed  with  sword  and  shield  and  some  primitive  fire 
arms,  broke  the  square  of  the  English,  furnished  with  the  best 
modern  arms,  at  Tel-el-Kebir,  in  daylight  and  open  country. 

Page  2$2,  note  i.  The  relation  of  employer  and  servants 
(at  that  period  almost  invariably  New  Englanders  from  neigh 
boring  towns)  seemed  to  Mr.  Emerson  to  put  the  parties  in 
so  false  a  position  that,  with  his  wife's  concurrence,  the  help 
were  invited  to  sit  at  the  same  table  at  meals.  The  matter 
was  quickly  solved  from  the  kitchen  side,  for  the  woman  who 
waited  on  table  explained  that  the  cook  was  shy  and  unwilling 
to  eat  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Emerson,  and  that  she  herself  did 
not  wish  to  leave  the  cook  alone. 


NOTES  44i 

Page  253,  note  i.  Treatise  of  Synesius  on  Providence, 
translated  by  Thomas  Taylor  and  printed  with  his  Select 
Works  of  Plotinus,  London,  1817.  Synesius  was  later  a  con 
vert  to  Christianity  and  became  Bishop  of  Cyrene;  he  lived 
in  the  early  part  of  the  Fifth  Century. 

Page  256,  note  i. 

Times  wore  he  as  his  clothing-weeds, 
He  sowed  the  sun  and  moon  for  seeds. 

"  The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Sun  and  moon  must  fall  amain 
Like  sower's  seeds  into  his  brain, 
There  quickened  to  be  born  again. 

"  Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 


THE   TIMES 

( 

This  was  the  Introductory  Lecture  of  a  course  of  eight 
lectures  on  "The  Times"  given  by  Mr.  Emerson  at  the 
Masonic  Temple  in  Boston,  in  the  winter  of  1841—42.  The 
others  were  "The  Conservative,"  "The  Poet,"  "The 
Transcendentalist,"  "Manners,"  "Character,"  "Relation 
to  Nature,"  "  Prospects." 

"The  Times,"  "  The  Conservative  "  and  "The  Trans- 
cendentalist,"  also  included  in  this  volume,  were  printed  in 
the  Dial  (July,  1842,  October,  1842,  January,  1843). 
"The  Poet,"  in  part,  is  printed  in  "Poetry  and  Imagina 
tion,"  in  Letters  and  Social  Aims,  "Manners"  and  also 
"  Character,"  in  part,  in  Essays,  Second  Series. 

Page  259,  note  i.     This  image  of  godlike  days  humbly 


442  NOTES 

disguised  appears  several  times  in  Mr.    Emerson* s  writings, 
especially  in  the  poem  "  Days,"  and  in  ««  May- Day." 

Page  260,  note  i.  As  he  puts  it  in  his  Journal,  "  Love 
is  the  solution  of  mine  and  thine." 

Page  262,  note  z.  In  this  and  the  next  pages  appears  the  an 
cient  doctrine  of  the  Flowing,  but  applied  to  the  human  stream 
slowly  ascending,  as  spirit  more  and  more  informs  the  clay. 

Page  263,  note  i.  From  his  boyhood  up,  Mr.  Emerson  de 
lighted  in  oratory.  The  brilliant,  if  florid,  declamations  of  some 
students  in  college,  especially  John  Everett  and  certain  youths 
from  the  South,  had  a  charm  which  caused  their  words  to  re 
main  in  his  memory  from  those  days,  hard  to  conceive  of  now, 
when  the  whole  college  flocked  to  hear  the  Seniors  declaim. 
As  a  youth  he  would  walk  far  to  hear  Webster's  mighty 
speech,  and  keenly  enjoyed  the  graceful  and  studied  eloquence 
of  Edward  Everett.  He  admired  the  elegant  bearing,  cool 
mastery  of  speech,  and  cutting  denunciation  of  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  who  was  never  fully  himself  until  challenged  or  menaced. 

Mr.  Emerson's  own  delivery  was  agreeable,  his  voice  flex 
ible,  admirably  modulated,  especially  in  reading  poetry,  and 
of  unexpected  power  at  the  right  moment.  Mr.  N.  P.  Willis, 
in  an  amusing  article  {Hurrjgraphs,  New  York,  1851),  de 
scribes  his  first  hearing  of  Emerson,  and,  among  other  things, 
says  this  of  the  surprise  of  his  voice  :  "A  heavy  and  vase-like 
blossom  of  a  magnolia  with  fragrance  enough  to  perfume  a 
whole  wilderness,  which  should  be  lifted  by  a  whirlwind 
and  dropped  into  a  branch  of  an  aspen,  would  not  seem  more 
as  if  it  never  could  have  grown  there  than  Emerson's  voice 
seems  inspired,  and  foreign  to  his  visible  and  natural  body." 

Page  267,  note  i.  In  Mr.  Emerson's  copy  of  Taylor's 
translation  of  Plotinus,  he  marked  the  definition  of  time  by 
Archytas  the  Pythagorean,  — a  continued  and  indivisible  flux 
of  hours. 


NOTES  443 

Page  2fl,  note  I.  It  should  be  remembered  that  this  lec 
ture  was  written  in  the  days  when  New  England  bristled 
with  reforms  ;  and  their  advocates,  striving  to  outdo  one  another 
in  the  radical  quality  or  the  refinements  of  their  schemes, 
flocked  to  Mr.  Emerson  because  of  his  well-known  hospital 
ity  to  thoughts.  Therefore  his  combination  of  good  sense 
with  sympathy,  of  good  temper  and  of  humor  with  just  criti 
cism,  and  his  ability  to  look  on  these  crowding  causes  with  a 
due  perspective,  is  remarkable. 

Page  2^4,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  valued  highly  the  prose 
as  well  as  the  poetry  of  Milton,  especially  the  Areopagitica. 

Page  277,  note  I.  Of  this  paragraph  Dr.  Holmes  says  : 
"All  this  and  much  more  like  it  would  hardly  have  been  lis 
tened  to  by  the  ardent  advocates  of  the  various  reforms,  if 
anybody  but  Mr.  Emerson  had  said  it.  He  undervalued  no 
sincere  action  except  to  suggest  a  wiser  and  better  one.  .  .  . 
The  charm  of  his  imagination  and  the  music  of  his  words  took 
away  all  the  sting  from  the  thoughts  that  penetrated  to  the 
very  marrow  of  the  entranced  listeners." 

Page  278,  note  I. 

Teach  me  your  mood,  O  patient  stars  ! 
Who  climb  each  night  the  ancient  sky, 
Leaving  on  space  no  shade,  no  scars, 
No  trace  of  age,  no  fear  to  die. 

"  Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems  t  Appendix. 

Page  280,  note  I.  When  the  Dial  was  under  considera 
tion,  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  in  his  diary,  "  It  ought  to  contain 
the  best  advice  on  the  topics  of  Government,  Temperance, 
Abolition,  Trade  and  Domestic  Life.  It  might  well  add  such 
poetry  and  sentiment  as  will  now  constitute  its  best  merit." 


444  NOTES 

When  he  was  urged  to  edit  it,  he  wrote  :  "I  wish  it  to  live, 
but  I  do  not  wish  to  be  its  life.  Neither  do  I  like  to  put  it 
into  the  hands  of  the  Humanity  and  Reform  men,  because 
they  trample  on  letters  and  poetry,  nor  into  the  hands  of  the 
Scholars,  for  they  are  dead  and  dry."  Yet  he  made  it  always 
a  point  of  honor  to  defend  or  help  the  reformers  at  critical 
times. 

Page  282,  note  I.  An  ancestor  of  Mr.  Emerson's,  one 
of  the  Moodys,  a  forcible  preacher,  thus  urged  his  parish 
ioners  :  "  And  when  ye  know  not  what  to  do,  do  not  do  ye 
know  not  what ! ' ' 

Page  28  8  y  note  I.  In  the  poem  tf  Blight  "  is  a  very  simi 
lar  passage. 

Page  289,  note  I.  The  doctrine  of  the  Oneness  of  Being, 
taught  by  Paul  at  Athens,  and  the  resulting  Immortality.  The 
same  in  Oriental  form  appears  in  «<  Brahma  "  (Poems). 

Page  291,  note  I.  This  passage  is  almost  autobiographical, 
as  is  also  a  very  similar  one  about  Osman  (an  ideal  man) 
towards  the  end  of  the  chapter,  "  Manners,"  Essays,  Second 
Series. 

THE   CONSERVATIVE 

This  lecture,  as  has  been  said  elsewhere,  was  the  second  in 
the  course  on  "  The  Times  "  given  by  Mr.  Emerson  in  Bos 
ton  in  the  winter  of  1 841-42.  It  was  first  printed  in  the  Dial 
(October,  1842).  Dr.  Holmes  says,  in  his  Memoir  of  Mr. 
Emerson,  that  "it  was  a  time  of  great  excitement  among  the 
members  of  that  circle  of  which  he  was  the  spiritual  leader. 
Never  did  Emerson  show  the  perfect  sanity  which  character 
ized  his  practical  judgment  more  beautifully  than  in  this 
lecture,  and  in  his  whole  course  with  reference  to  the  intel- 


NOTES  445 

lectual  agitation  of  the  period.  He  is  as  fair  to  the  conserva 
tive  as  to  the  reformer.  .  .  .  He  has  his  beliefs  and,  if  you 
will,  his  prejudices,  but  he  loves  fair  play,  and,  though  he 
sides  with  the  party  of  the  future,  he  will  not  be  unjust  to  the 
present  or  the  past." 

Page  296,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson's  eager  listening  to  the 
men  of  science  and  his  use  of  their  facts  on  a  higher  plane  is 
everywhere  shown  in  his  prose  and  verse.  In  "  The  American 
Scholar  "  he  speaks  of"  every  trifle  bristling  with  Polarity  that 
ranges  it  instantly  on  an  eternal  law  ;  "  in  "  Compensation  ' ' 
he  devotes  a  paragraph  to  it,  and  it  appears  in  the  fourth  verse 
of  "  The  Sphinx  "  and  elsewhere. 

Page  297,  note  I.  Suggesting  the  lines  in  the  end  of 
"Threnody:  "  - 

Silent  rushes  the  swift  Lord 

Through  ruined  systems  still  restored,  etc. 

Protagoras' s  doctrine  of  "becoming"  in  Plato's  "  Theas- 
tetus  ' '  is  also  called  to  mind. 

Page  299,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson's  own  strength  being 
purely  individual,  and  his  sympathies  and  hopes  for  society 
primarily  in  the  advance  of  the  individual,  his  respectful  allow 
ance  of  the  use  of  organization  and  the  value  of  the  guardians 
of  what  the  Past  seems  to  have  established,  coupled  with  his 
perception  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  reforming  class,  is  the 
more  interesting. 

Page  304,  note  I.  "  The  strength  of  the  Egyptians  is  to 
sit  still."  Isaiah  xxx.  7. 

Page  312,  note  I.  Not  merely  the  crack-brained  or  nar 
row  reformers,  "the  monotones,"  as  he  called  them,  visited 
Mr.  Emerson,  but  high-minded  and  brave  protestants  against 


446  NOTES 

the  humdrum  selfishness  or  artificiality  of  life  as  they  found 
it  were  his  neighbors  and  friends. 

In  their  first  reaction  they  undervalued  the  arrangements 
they  found.  Thoreau  cared  little  for  the  roads,  and  Mr.  Al- 
cott,  when  called  on  for  his  tax,  said  that  he  used  the  fields 
as  much,  so,  since  they  thought  their  money  was  often  mis 
applied,  they  would  not  pay.  Mr.  Emerson's  level  head  was, 
in  the  long  run,  a  useful  corrective  to  his  friends'  extreme 
views. 

E.  sits  in  a  mystery  calm  and  intense, 

And  looks  coolly  round  him  with  sharp  common  sense. 
Lowell,  «« Fable  for  Critics." 

Page  325,  note  i.  This  paragraph,  written  in  1841,  con 
cerning  the  hero's  resolve,  and  therefore  his  own  ideal,  might 
with  little  change  have  served  for  Mr.  Emerson's  epitaph. 
He  respected  the  laws,  written  or  unwritten,  results  of  the 
better  tendencies  of  mankind  in  the  past,  yet  his  individual 
life,  not  dependent  on  these,  helped  to  amend  them. 


THE   TRANSCENDENTALIST 

This  lecture  was  the  fourth  in  the  course  on  "  The  Times," 
but  did  not,  as  might  seem  natural,  follow  immediately,  for 
contrast's  sake,  as  in  this  volume,  on  "The  Conservative." 
*<  The  Poet  "  came  in  as  a  golden  mean  between  the  extremes, 
which  he  was  showing.  For  Mr.  Emerson,  when  called  a 
philosopher,  said,  "  I  am  in  all  my  theory,  ethics  and  poli 
tics  a  poet,"  and,  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  said,  "he  ridiculed 
the  impression  that  his  .  transcendentalism  was  a  known  and 
fixed  element,  like  salt  or  meal,  a  rigid  definite  creed.  All 
the  argument  and  all  the  wisdom,  he  declares,  is  not  in  the 


NOTES  447 

treatise  on  metaphysics,  but  in  the  sonnet  or  the  play."  The 
intervening  lecture  "The  Poet  "  was  not,  however,  the  essay 
by  that  name  in  the  Second  Series,  but  another,  much  of 
which  he  printed  later,  with  liberal  additions,  in  "  Poetry 
and  Imagination  ' '  in  the  volume  Letters  and  Social  Aims. 

Dr.  Holmes,  after  speaking  of  the  prejudice  naturally  ex 
isting  against  "  the  Transcendentalists  "  at  the  time  of  this 
lecture,  says  :  — 

"  On  the  other  hand  we  have  the  evidence  of  a  visitor 
who  knew  a  good  deal  of  the  world  as  to  the  impression  they 
produced  upon  him  :  — 

"  'There  has  sprung  up  in  Boston,'  says  Dickens,  in  his 
American  Notes,  '  a  set  of  philosophers  known  as  the  Tran 
scendentalists.  On  inquiring  what  this  appellation  might  be 
supposed  to  signify,  I  was  given  to  understand  that  whatever  was 
unintelligible  would  be  certainly  Transcendental.  Not  deriv 
ing  much  comfort  from  this  elucidation,  I  pursued  the  inquiry 
still  further,  and  found  that  the  Transcendentalists  are  follow 
ers  of  my  friend  Mr.  Carlyle,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  of  a 
follower  of  his,  Mr.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  This  gentleman 
has  written  a  volume  of  Essays,  in  which  among  much  that 
is  dreamy  and  fanciful  (if  he  will  pardon  me  for  saying  so), 
there  is  much  more  that  is  true  and  manly,  honest  and  bold. 
Transcendentalism  has  its  occasional  vagaries  (what  school  has 
not?),  but  it  has  good  healthful  qualities  in  spite  of  them  ; 
not  least  among  the  number  a  hearty  disgust  of  Cant,  and  an 
aptitude  to  detect  her  in  all  the  million  varieties  of  her  ever 
lasting  wardrobe.  And  therefore,  if  I  were  a  Bostonian,  I 
think  I  would  be  a  Transcendentalism'  ' 

Page  JJO,  note  i.  Here,  as  everywhere,  appears  the  sure 
faith  in  evolution  and  ascension  in  God's  own  time.  In  the 


448  NOTES 

opening  passages  of  the  essay  "Poetry  and  Imagination" 
above  referred  to,  the  natural  advance  of  the  mind  from  ma 
terialism  to  idealism  is  described. 

Page 333,  note  i.  In  his  Journal  for  1838  he  says,  "  The 
physician  tends  always  to  invert  man,  to  look  upon  the  body 
as  the  cause  of  the  soul,  to  look  upon  man  as  tyrannized  over 
by  his  members." 

Page  335,  note  I.  It  was  charged  as  heresy  to  Mr.  Em 
erson  that  he  did  not  believe  in  miracles.  The  happiness  of 
his  life  lay  in  his  contemplation  of  the  daily  miracle  wrought 
by  sure  and  perfect  law. 

PaSe  337  >  note  *•  Friedrich  Heinrich  Jacobi,  a  contem 
porary  of  Goethe,  and  a  writer  first  of  romances,  then  of 
treatises,  both  of  a  philosophic  character.  A  believer  in  intui 
tion  or  divine  impulse,  he  was  impatient  of  the  formal  systems 
of  the  metaphysicians. 

Page  338,  note  I.  Yet  in  these  very  years  a  few  of  the 
reformers  were  led  by  their  enthusiasm  and  faith  to  apostolic 
experiments,  to  go  forth  to  share  with  others  the  light  that 
seemed  to  them  so  important,  taking  no  thought  for  the  mor 
row,  —  not  only  bachelors,  but  men  with  families.  They  were 
bitterly  condemned  and  ridiculed  by  those  who  claimed  to 
believe  absolutely  and  literally  in  the  words  of  Jesus  :  "  Con 
sider  the  lilies  of  the  field  ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin," 
etc.,  or  f<  There  is  no  man  that  hath  left  house  or  brethren 
or  sisters  or  father  or  mother  or  wife  or  children  or  lands,  for 
my  sake  and  the  gospel's,  but  he  shall  receive  an  hundredfold 
now  in  this  time,  .  .  .  and  in  the  world  to  come  eternal 
life." 

Page  342  y  note  I.  In  this  passage  it  is  Mr.  Alcott  that 
his  friend  alludes  to.  He  wrote  of  him  to  Carlyle  in  1839: 
"  A  man  named  Bronson  Alcott  is  a  majestic  soul  with  whom 


NOTES  449 

conversation  is  possible.  He  is  capable  of  truth.'*  Later  he 
said  of  him,  "  Alcott  astonishes  by  the  grandeur  of  his  angle 
of  vision  and  the  heaps  of  particulars."  And  again:  "  He  is 
good  as  a  lens,  a  mirror,  a  beautiful  susceptibility,  every  im 
pression  on  which  is  to  be  accounted  for,  and,  until  accounted 
for,  registered  as  an  addition  to  our  catalogue  of  natural  facts. 
It  needs  one  acquainted  with  the  lens  by  frequent  use  to  make 
allowance  for  defects,  but  '  t  is  the  best  instrument  I  ever  met 
with." 

Page  342,  note  2. 

The  civil  world  will  much  forgive,  etc. 

"  The  Poet,"  IV.,  Poems,  Appendix. 

?*£*  347  >  n°te  i- 

Well  and  wisely  said  the  Greek, 
Be  thou  faithful,  but  not  fond  ; 
To  the  altar's  foot  thy  fellow  seek,  — 
The  Furies  wait  beyond. 

"  Pericles,"  Quatrains,  Poems. 

Page  350,  note  I.  The  change  to  the  first  person  in  this 
paragraph  —  very  likely  due  to  a  sheet  introduced  after  the 
main  part  of  the  essay  was  written  —  does  not  mean  that 
Mr.  Emerson  states  here  his  own  views.  In  this  and  what 
follows  he  only  continues  to  be  a  mouthpiece  for  the  views  of 
these  "children"  with  whose  faith  he  admits  a  sympathy, 
but  it  is  a  measured  one. 

Page  350,  note  2.  Quoted  from  Walter  Savage  Landor's 
Pericles  and  Aspasia. 

Page  354,  note  I.  This  Trinity  appears  in  the  first  pages 
of  "  The  Poet,"  Essays,  Second  Series,  and  in  «<  Art,"  Society 
and  Solitude. 


450  NOTES 

Page  356,  note  I.  Sometimes,  when  "  weary  of  dealing 
with  people  each  cased  in  his  several  insanity,"  outcries  came, 
in  the  Journal  at  least,  yet  with  a  touch  of  humor  and  always 
a  basis  of  kindness,  as  thus  :  — 

Journal,  1842.  "Could  they  not  die?  or  succeed?  or 
help  themselves  ?  or  draw  others  ?  or  draw  me  ?  or  offend 
me  ?  in  any  manner,  I  care  not  how,  could  they  not  be  dis 
posed  of  and  cease  to  hang  there  in  the  horizon,  an  unsettled 
appearance,  too  great  to  be  neglected,  and  not  great  enough 
to  be  of  any  aid  or  comfort  to  this  great  craving  humanity  ? ' ' 

Page  358,  note  I.  The  above  passage  is  a  good  example 
of  Mr.  Emerson's  light  hand  in  dealing  with  a  movement 
that  surely  had  absurd  aspects,  but  more  that  approached  the 
sublime. 

Journal.  "  Shall  it  be  said  of  the  hero  that  he  opposed  all 
contemporary  good  because  it  was  not  grand  ?  I  think  it  bet 
ter  to  get  their  humble  good,  and  to  catch  the  golden  boon 
of  purity  and  temperance  and  mercy  from  these  poor ' ' 
[preachers  and  reformers] . 

Page  Jfp,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  perhaps  had  here  in 
mind  some  lines  of  Juvenal  which  described  the  "  Sons  of  the 
Morning ' '  for  whose  coming  he  was  ever  on  the  watch  :  — 

Juvenes  queis  arte  benigna 

Et  meliore  luto  finxit  praecordia  Titan. 

"  Blest  youths,  though  few,  whose  hearts  the  god  of  Day 
Fashioned  with  loving  hand  and  from  a  nobler  clay." 

THE    YOUNG   AMERICAN 

Concerning  the  Mercantile  Library  Association,  before  which 
this  Address  was  given,  Winsor,  in  his  Historic  Boston,  says 


NOTES  451 

that  it  was  founded  in  1820,  antedating  that  of  New  York  ; 
that  "it 'was  floated  for  some  years  by  the  most  popular  sys 
tem  of  public  lectures  in  town,"  and  that  it  succumbed  in 
1877  before  the  advancing  Public  Library,  becoming  the 
South  End  Branch  of  that  institution. 

"  The  Young  American  "  was  printed  in  the  April  num 
ber  of  the  Dial  for  1844.  Two  passages  in  the  first  pages  of 
the  Address  as  there  printed,  which  Mr.  Emerson  chose  to 
omit  when  he  printed  it  among  the  Miscellanies,  have  now  a 
historic  interest  which  seemed  to  justify  the  reprinting  of  the 
greater  part  of  them  in  the  notes  below.  The  first  of  these 
tells  of  the  reading  of  the  young  scholars  in  the  first  third  of 
the  century.  The  second  describes  the  additions  won  from 
the  sea  for  Boston  and  the  building  up  of  the  town  into  a 
city,  the  making  of  the  early  railroads,  the  coming  of  the  Irish 
laborers  and  their  endurance  and  cheerfulness  under  unmerci 
ful  taskmasters,  and  gives  a  hopeful  prophecy  for  their  future. 

Page  363,  note  I.  This  passage,  printed  in  the  Dial,  is 
omitted  :  — 

"  Our  books  are  European.  We  were  born  within  the 
fame  and  sphere  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  of  Bacon,  Dry- 
den,  and  Pope.  Our  college  text-books  are  the  writings  of 
Butler,  Locke,  Paley,  Blackstone,  and  Stewart ;  and  out 
domestic  reading  has  been  Clarendon  and  Hume,  Addisop 
and  Johnson,  Young  and  Cowper,  Edgeworth  and  Scott, 
Southey,  Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth,  and  the  Edinburgh  and 
Quarterly  Reviews.  We  are  sent  to  a  feudal  school  to  learn 
democracy." 

Page  363,  note  2.    From  the  Dial  version  :  — 

"  Their  alleged  effect  to  augment  disproportionately  the  size 
of  cities  is  in  rapid  course  of  fulfilment  in  this  metropolis  of 


452  NOTES 

New  England.  The  growth  of  Boston,  never  slow,  has  been 
so  accelerated  since  the  railroads  have  been  opened,  which  join 
it  to  Providence,  to  Albany,  and  to  Portland,  that  the  extreme 
depression  of  general  trade  has  not  concealed  it  from  the  most 
careless  eye.  The  narrow  peninsula,  which  a  few  years  ago 
easily  held  its  thirty  or  forty  thousand  people,  with  many 
pastures  and  waste  lands,  not  to  mention  the  large  private 
gardens  in  the  midst  of  the  town,  has  been  found  too  strait 
when  forty  are  swelled  to  a  hundred  thousand.  The  waste 
lands  have  been  fenced  in  and  builded  over,  the  private  gardens, 
one  after  the  other,  have  become  streets.  Boston  proper  con 
sisted  of  seven  hundred  and  twenty  acres  of  land.  Acre  after 
acre  has  been  since  won  from  the  sea,  and  in  a  short  time  the 
antiquary  will  find  it  difficult  to  trace  the  peninsular  topogra 
phy.  Within  the  last  year  .  .  .  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hun 
dred  buildings  .  .  .  have  been  erected,  many  of  them  of  a 
rich  and  durable  character.  And  because  each  of  the  new 
avenues  of  iron  road  ramifies  like  the  bough  of  a  tree,  the 
growth  of  the  city  proceeds  at  a  geometrical  rate.  Already  a 
new  road  is  shooting  northwest  towards  the  Connecticut  and 
Montreal,  and  every  line  of  road  that  is  completed  makes  cross- 
sections  from  road  to  road  more  practicable,  so  that  the  land 
will  presently  be  wrapped  in  a  network  of  iron.  This  rage 
for  road-building  is  beneficent  for  America,  where  vast  dis 
tance  is  so  main  a  consideration  in  our  domestic  politics  and 
trade,  inasmuch  as  the  great  political  promise  of  the  invention 
is  to  hold  the  Union  staunch,  whose  days  seemed  already 
numbered  by  the  mere  inconvenience  of  transporting  repre 
sentatives,  judges,  and  officers  across  such  tedious  distances  of 
land  and  water.  Not  only  is  distance  annihilated,  but  when,  as 
now,  the  locomotive  and  the  steamboat,  like  enormous  shut 
tles,  shoot  every  day  across  the  thousand  various  threads  of 


NOTES  453 

national  descent  and  employment,  and  bind  them  fast  in  one 
web,  an  hourly  assimilation  goes  forward  and  there  is  no  dan 
ger  that  local  peculiarities  and  hostilities  should  be  preserved. 

"  The  new  power  is  hardly  less  noticeable  in  its  relation 
to  the  immigrant  population,  chiefly  to  the  people  of  Ireland, 
as  having  given  employment  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
natives  of  that  country,  who  are  continually  arriving  in  every 
vessel  from  Great  Britain. 

"In  an  uneven  country  the  railroad  is  a  fine  object  in  the 
making.  It  has  introduced  a  multitude  of  picturesque  traits 
into  our  pastoral  scenery.  The  tunnelling  of  mountains,  the 
bridging  of  streams,  the  bold  mole  carried  out  into  the  broad, 
silent  meadow,  silent  and  unvisited  by  any  but  its  own  neigh 
bors  since  the  planting  of  the  region  ;  the  encounter  at  short 
distances  along  the  track  of  gangs  of  laborers;  the  energy  with 
which  they  strain  at  their  tasks;  the  cries  of  the  overseer  or 
boss ;  the  character  of  the  work  itself  which  so  violates  and 
revolutionizes  the  primal  and  immemorial  forms  of  nature  ;  the 
village  of  shanties  at  the  edge  of  the  beautiful  lakes,  until  now 
the  undisturbed  haunt  of  the  wild  duck,  and  in  the  most  se 
questered  nooks  of  the  forest,  around  which  the  wives  and 
children  of  the  Irish  are  seen  ;  the  number  of  foreigners,  men 
and  women,  whom  now  the  woodsman  encounters  singly  in 
the  forest  paths  ;  the  blowing  of  rocks,  explosions  all  day, 
with  the  occasional  alarm  of  frightful  accident,  and  the  indefi 
nite  promise  of  what  the  new  channel  of  trade  may  do  and  undo 
for  the  rural  towns,  keep  the  senses  and  imagination  active  ; 
and  the  varied  aspects  of  the  enterprise  make  it  the  topic  of 
all  companies,  in  cars  and  boats,  and  by  firesides. 

"  This  picture  is  a  little  saddened,  when  too  nearly  seen, 
by  the  wrongs  that  are  done  in  the  contracts  that  are  made 
with  the  laborers.  Our  hospitality  to  the  poor  Irishman  has 


454  NOTES 

not  much  merit  in  it.  We  pay  the  poor  fellow  very  ill.  To 
work  from  dark  to  dark  for  sixty  or  even  fifty  cents  a  day 
is  but  pitiful  wages  for  a  married  man.  It  is  a  pittance 
when  paid  in  cash,  but  when,  as  generally  happens,  through 
the  extreme  wants  of  the  one  party,  met  by  the  shrewdness 
of  the  other,  he  draws  his  pay  in  clothes  and  food,  and  in 
other  articles  of  necessity,  his  case  is  still  worse  ;  he  buys 
everything  at  disadvantage,  and  has  no  adviser  or  protector. 
Besides,  the  labor  done  is  excessive,  and  the  sight  of  it  re 
minds  one  of  negro-driving.  Good  farmers  and  sturdy  labor 
ers  say  that  they  have  never  seen  so  much  work  got  out  of  a 
man  in  a  day.  Poor  fellows!  Hear  their  stories  of  their  exo 
dus  from  the  old  country,  and  their  landing  in  the  new,  and 
their  fortunes  appear  as  little  under  their  own  control  as  the 
leaves  of  the  forest  around  them.  As  soon  as  the  ship  that 
brought  them  is  anchored,  one  is  whirled  off  to  Albany,  one 
to  Ohio,  one  digs  at  the  levee  at  New  Orleans,  and  one  be 
side  the  water-wheels  at  Lowell  ;  some  fetch  and  carry  on 
the  wharves  of  New  York  and  Boston,  some  in  the  woods  of 
Maine.  They  have  too  little  money,  and  too  little  knowledge, 
to  allow  them  the  exercise  of  much  more  election  of  whither 
to  go,  or  what  to  do,  than  the  leaf  that  is  blown  into  this 
dike  or  that  brook  to  perish. 

"And  yet  their  plight  is  not  so  grievous  as  it  seems.  The 
escape  from  the  squalid  despair  of  their  condition  at  home  into 
the  unlimited  opportunities  of  their  existence  here,  must  be 
reckoned  a  gain.  The  Irish  father  and  mother  are  very  ill 
paid,  and  are  victims  of  fraud  and  private  oppression  ;  but 
their  children  are  instantly  received  into  the  schools  of  the 
country  ;  they  grow  up  in  perfect  communication  and  equal 
ity  with  the  native  children,  and  owe  to  the  parents  a  vigor 
of  constitution  which  promises  them  at  least  an  even  chance 


NOTES  455 

in  the  competitions  of  the  new  generation.  Whether  it  is  this 
confidence  that  puts  a  drop  of  sweetness  in  their  cup,  or 
whether  the  buoyant  spirits  natural  to  the  race,  it  is  certain 
that  they  seam  to  have  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  vivacity  and 
good  nature  in  our  towns,  and  contrast  broadly,  in  that  par 
ticular,  with  the  native  people.  In  the  village  where  I  reside, 
through  which  a  railroad  is  being  built,  the  charitable  ladies, 
who,  moved  by  a  report  of  the  wrongs  and  distresses  of  the 
newly  arrived  laborers,  explored  the  shanties  with  offers  of 
relief,  were  surprised  to  find  the  most  civil  reception,  and  the 
most  bounding  sportfulness  from  the  oldest  to  the  youngest. 
Perhaps  they  may  thank  these  dull  shovels  as  safe  vents  for 
peccant  humors  ;  and  this  grim  day's  work  of  fifteen  or  six 
teen  hours,  though  deplored  by  all  the  humanity  of  the  neigh 
borhood,  is  a  better  police  than  the  sheriff  and  his  depu 
ties." 

Page  364,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson's  own  life  and  his  influ 
ence  on  his  countrymen  was  greatly  affected  by  the  rapid 
spreading  of  the  branches  of  the  Railroad  tree  then  recently 
planted  by  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  seventeen  winters  follow 
ing  the  delivery  of  this  address,  excepting  that  of  1847,  spent 
in  England,  were  passed  in  arduous  and  exposing  travel,  giv 
ing  lectures  in  answer  to  calls  from  cities,  villages,  and  recent 
settlements  from  Maine  to  the  Mississippi,  and  finally  beyond 
that  stream,  then  dangerous  enough  in  winter. 

Page  364,  note  2.     From  the  Medea  of  Euripides. 

Page  366 y  note  I.  In  the  Journal  of  1838  Mr.  Emerson 
thus  acknowledged  his  own  debt  :  — 

"  If  my  garden  had  only  made  me  acquainted  with  the 
muck-worm,  the  bugs,  the  grasses,  and  the  swamp  of  plenty 
in  August,  I  should  willingly  pay  a  free  tuition.  But  every 
process  is  lucrative  to  me  far  beyond  its  economy." 


456  NOTES 

The  next  June  he  admits  that  when  tired  with  too  much 
talk  of  the  visiting  philosophers,  he  meditates  flight  beyond 
the  Acton  hills.  "  But  my  garden  is  nearer,  and  my  good  hoe 
as  it  bites  the  ground  revenges  my  wrongs.  ...  I  confess 
I  work  at  first  with  a  little  venom,  lay  to  a  little  unnecessary 
strength,  but  by  smoothing  the  rough  hillocks,  I  smooth  my 
temper;  by  extracting  the  long  roots  of  the  pipe-grass  I  draw 
out  my  own  splinters,  and  in  a  short  time  I  can  hear  the 
bobolink's  song,  and  see  the  blessed  deluge  of  light  and  color 
that  rolls  around  me." 

Page  366,  note  2.  In  these  very  days,  George  William 
Curtis  and  his  brother  were  working  as  laborers  on  the  farm 
of  Captain  Nathan  Barrett,  and  Hawthorne,  recently  mar 
ried,  was  living  in  the  Manse  (built  by  Mr.  Emerson's 
grandfather),  all  three  having  served  an  agricultural  and  do 
mestic  apprenticeship  in  the  community  at  Brook  Farm. 

Page  367,  note  I.  Journal,  1838.  «'I  think  Tennyson 
got  his  inspiration  in  gardens,  and  that  in  this  country,  where 
there  are  no  gardens,  his  musky  verses  could  not  be  written. 
The  Villa  d'  Este  is  a  memorable  poem  in  my  life." 

Page  368,  note  /.  The  garden  at  home  did  not  prove 
always  helpful  to  thought,  and  a  few  months  after  this  sen 
tence  was  written,  he  bought  the  beautiful  pines,  that  he  had 
often  looked  wistfully  to  while  weeding, — his  "Sacred 
Grove"  on  the  shore  of  Walden.  It  was  there  that  his 
young  friend,  Henry  Thoreau,  built  his  cabin  the  next  year, 
and  lived  for  a  time.  Two  years  later,  Mr.  Emerson  wrote 
to  Carlyle  of  his  ft  new  plaything,  the  best  I  ever  had,"  which 
was  the  high  wood-circled  Walden  Ledge  on  the  farther  shore 
of  the  pond.  Of  this  he  wrote  :  — 

"  In  these  May  days,  when  maples,  poplars,  oaks,  birches, 
walnut  and  pine  are  in  their  spring  glory,  I  go  thither  every 


NOTES  457 

afternoon,  and  cut  with  my  hatchet  an  Indian  path  through 
the  thicket  all  along  the  bold  shore,  and  open  the  finest  pic 
tures."  The  poem,  "  My  Garden,"  describes  this  spot, 
and  what  its  owner  found  there.  It  was  close  to  the  new 
Fitchburg  Railroad,  and  later  he  wrote  how  his  woods  re 
proached  him  as  he  passed  by  in  the  train  to  Boston. 

Page  368,  note  2.  These  were  the  days  when  the  facto 
ries,  rising  along  the  course  of  every  river  in  New  England, 
were  tempting  the  boys  and  girls  away  from  their  work  beside 
their  fathers  in  the  fields,  and  their  mothers  in  the  farm-house. 
The  first  wave  of  the  immigration  of  the  Irish  peasantry  to 
build  the  new  railroads  made  this  possible,  for  most  of  these, 
when  the  railroads  were  built,  sought  employment  in  the  coun 
try  towns. 

Page  369,  note  I. 

And  I  affirm  my  actions  smack  of  the  soil. 

"  Hamatreya,"  Poems. 

Page  371,  note  I.  In  a  letter  written  shortly  before  this 
time  to  his  unseen  friend  in  England,  John  Sterling,  he  had 
said  :  — 

"It  seems  to  me  that  so  great  a  task  is  imposed  on  the 
young  men  of  this  generation  that  life  and  health  have  a  new 
value.  The  problems  of  reform  are  losing  their  local  and 
sectarian  character,  and  becoming  generous,  profound,  and 
poetic." 

Page  372,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson's  optimism  was  of  a 
patient  kind.  He  often  notices  the  small  balance  to  the  ac 
count  of  good.  In  his  "  Historical  Discourse  at  Concord" 
(Miscellanies}  he  is  glad  that  in  the  town  meetings  "if  the 
good  counsel  prevailed,  the  sneaking  counsel  did  not  fail  to  be 
suggested;  freedom  and  virtue,  if  they  triumphed,  triumphed 


458  NOTES 

in  a  fair  field.  And  so  be  it  an  everlasting  testimony  for  them, 
and  so  much  ground  of  assurance  of  man's  capacity  for  self- 
government.  ' ' 

Page  37 2 >  note  2.  The  principle  of  "  effort  "  recognized 
by  Lamarck,  though  ridiculed  and  misrepresented  for  more 
than  a  half  century  after  he  announced  it,  was  recognized  by 
Mr.  Emerson  as  consonant  with  the  laws  which  the  great 
minds  of  antiquity  had  announced. 

Page  J7J,  note  I.  The  last  part  of  the  "  World-Soul  " 
(Poems')  is  a  rendering  of  this  passage  in  verse.  The  Dar 
winian  doctrine  of  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest  appears  here. 

Page  37 9 y  note  i.  In  the  essay  "  Nature  "  (Essays,  Sec 
ond  Series}  he  speaks  of  morning  sanity,  when,  "after  every 
foolish  day,  we  sleep  off  the  fumes  and  furies  of  its  hours, '  * 
as  the  lesson  of  the  little  blue  self-heal  that  grows  beneath  his 
study  windows. 

Page  38 Oy  note  I.  The  three  Communities  in  Massachu 
setts  here  alluded  to  are  :  — 

I.  Brook  Farm,  of  which  he  tells  in  "  Historic  Notes  of 
Life  and  Letters  in  New  England  "  in  Lectures  and  Bio 
graphical  Sketches.  Mr.  Charles  Lane  contributed  a  paper 
on  the  subject  to  the  Dialy  January,  1844.  The  magazines 
contain  several  articles  on  Brook  Farm,  notably  those  con 
tributed  by  members  of  the  community,  Mr.  George  P.  Brad 
ford,1  Mrs.  Sedgwick,2  and  Mrs.  Kirby.3  Hawthorne  was  a 
member,  and  many  amusing  comments  on  the  life  there  are 
found  in  his  published  journals.  George  William  Curds,  also 


1  "  Reminiscences   of  Brook    Farm,"    Century   Magazine,   vol.    xxiii. 
p.   141. 

2  "  A  Girl  of  Sixteen  at  Brook  Farm,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  Ixxxv. 

P-  394- 

3  "A  Visit  to  Brook  Farm,"  Overland  Monthly,  vol.  v.  p.  9. 


NOTES  459 

a  member,  told  of  his  experience  in  his  letters  to  Mr.  John 
S.  D wight.1 

II.  Fruitlands,  Mr.  Alcott's  community  at  Harvard,  Mass., 
an  account  of  which  is  given  in  the  very  interesting   Memoir 
of  Bronson  Alcott,  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  and  W.  T.  Harris.    An 
official  communication  from  Fruitlands,   by  Mr.   Alcott  and 
his  English  coadjutor,   Charles  Lane,   appears   in   the  Dial, 
"Intelligence,"  in  July,  1843,  and  Mr.  Emerson's  account 
of  his  visit  there,  and  of  his  forebodings,  are  given  in  Mr. 
Cabot's  Memoir  (vol.  ii.  page  439),  and  in  Emerson  in  Con 
cord,  by  E.  W.  Emerson  (p.  203). 

III.  Hopedale,    near    Milford,    in    Worcester    County, 
founded  by  Rev.  Adin  Ballou.    Its  organ  was  a  paper  called 
the   Non-Resistant  and  Practical  Christian.    The  Hopedale 
Home  School  was  established  by  this  community. 

All  of  these  Communities  were  short-lived. 

Page  382,  note  I.  Fra^ois  Marie  Charles  Fourier  (1772— 
1837),  a  Frenchman  of  an  artistic  temperament  and  philo 
sophic  mind,  with  a  broad  humanity.  After  a  short  mercantile 
experience  which  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  seeing  other 
countries,  yet  disgusted  him  with  the  selfishness  of  trade  and 
the  social  organization,  he  was  swept  into  the  French  Revo 
lution,  and,  after  narrowly  escaping  the  guillotine,  served  as  a 
trooper  until  disqualified  by  ill  health.  In  1808  he  published 
his  Theories  des  quatres  Mouvements,  et  Destin'ees  generates, 
which,  after  six  years'  neglect,  attracted  general  notice.  His 
later  important  work  (1822)  was  the  Traite  de  r Associa 
tion  domestique-agricole,  and  the  Journal  de  Phalanstere.  On 
his  gravestone  were  inscribed  his  three  principles  :  I.  The 
series  distributes  the  harmonies  of  the  world  (/.  e.  all  the 

*  Early  Letters  of  George  William  Curtis  to  John  S.  Diuight.  Edited 
by  George  Willis  Cooke,  Harper  &  Bros.,  1898. 


460  NOTES 

harmonies  of  the  universe  grow  our  of  a  regular  and  uniform 
order).  II.  Attractions  are  proportioned  to  destinies  (/'.  e. 
all  beings  are  led  and  kept  in  their  true  sphere,  not  by  a  prin 
ciple  of  external  force,  but  of  internal  attraction).  III.  Ana 
logy  is  universal.  He  urged  that  association  of  capital,  science, 
and  labor  would  prepare  the  way  for  true  society;  that  the 
living  in  communities  of  some  eighteen  hundred  persons  each 
would  be  economical,  secure  just  and  appropriate  division  of 
labor,  and  by  variety  and  sociability  rob  labor  of  its  irksome- 
ness,  and  that  all  the  gifts  of  the  members  would  be  used  for 
the  common  profit  and  pleasure.  Fourier  never  himself  suc 
ceeded  in  carrying  out  his  ideas,  but  they  had  much  influence 
in  France,  England,  and  America  for  a  time.  Mr.  Emerson 
wrote  in  the  Dial  for  July,  1842,  "  Fourierism  and  the  So 
cialists,"  and  published  the  advocacy  of  these  ideas  by  Albert 
Brisbane,  criticising  them  good-naturedly  himself.  Miss  Eliz 
abeth  P.  Peabody  wrote  the  article  "Fourierism"  in  the 
April  number,  1844. 

Page  387,  note  I.  This  theme  is  enlarged  on  in  the  essay 
"Aristocracy,"  originally  called  "Natural  Aristocracy,"  Lec 
tures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  389,  note  I.  One  of  the  young  men  valued  by  Mr. 
Emerson,  and  moved  by  his  teachings,  Charles  Russell  Low 
ell,  in  his  valedictory  oration  at  Cambridge  on  the  "  Reverence 
due  from  Old  Men  to  Young,"  said:  "Therefore  the  old 
men  .  .  .  cannot  teach  us  of  the  present  what  should  be, 
for  that  we  know  as  well  as  they  or  better  :  they  should  not 
teach  us  what  can  be,  for  the  world  always  advances  by  im 
possibilities  achieved.'"  His  work  in  his  few  years  in  civil  life 
was  remarkable.  During  the  Civil  War,  as  captain  in  the 
United  States  Cavalry,  colonel  of  the  Second  Massachusetts 
Cavalry,  and  finally  as  commander  of  the  Reserve  Brigade  of 


NOTES  461 

Cavalry,  he  showed  again  and  again  a  power  of  doing  the 
apparently  impossible.  He  had  a  share  in  turning  the  flood 
of  disaster  at  Cedar  Creek,  and  died  in  the  moment  of  vic 
tory. 

Page  389,  note  2. 

Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento, 
(Hae  tibi  erunt  artes)  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
Parcere  subjectis  et  debellare  superbos. 

Virgil,  jEaeM,  VI. 

Page  391,  note  I.  At  the  dark  and  seemingly  hopeless 
period  of  the  agitation  against  slavery,  it  seemed  to  many 
abolitionists  that,  if  they  failed  to  do  away  with  it,  or  check 
its  advance,  it  might  become  the  duty  of  the  Northern  States 
to  repudiate  their  share  in  the  national  crime  by  secession. 

Page  392,  note  I.  This  lecture  was  delivered  during  the 
period  of  suffering  in  England,  increased  next  year  by  the 
famine,  and  two  years  before  the  triumph  of  the  Anti-corn 
Law  League  led  by  Cobden. 

Page  394,  note  I.  In  his  second  visit  to  England,  although 
it  seemed  to  Mr.  Emerson  that  the  prospects  for  better  social 
conditions  were  increasing,  and  a  longer  stay  there  perhaps 
modified  a  little  the  views  here  expressed,  he  did  not  fail  to 
bravely  speak  his  public  word,  even  in  the  face  of  some  re 
monstrance,  against  false,  and  for  real  aristocracy. 


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